


A Segue, I Suppose

by IAmAVeronica



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Also kind of sort of the Peanuts gang, Alternate Universe - Human, Bully Jackson, Bullying, Dog Sees God - Freeform, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Forgiveness, Hand Jobs, High School, Homophobia, Love Confessions, M/M, Mostly sex ones, Not a werewolf joke but kind of a werewolf joke, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pianist Derek, Power Bottom Stiles Stilinski, Protective Derek, Protective Stiles, Top Derek Hale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-20 11:02:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3647910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmAVeronica/pseuds/IAmAVeronica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek’s face turns bright red. “What…were you <em>listening</em> to me?”</p>
<p>Stiles opens his mouth, ready to tell Derek that the Derek had led him here with the music like some sort of snake charmer, and he can’t believe how good Derek is, and will Derek please play something else because listening to him had been the first thing to make Stiles happy since he’d woken up this morning. Then his mouth snaps shut as he remembers that he’s talking to <em>Derek Hale</em>. The boy who used to be his best friend. The boy he’s been watching Jackson torture all throughout high school. The boy whose summer transformation from sullen wimp to sex god has been keeping Stiles’s brain and dick occupied all day with some <em>very</em> inappropriate fantasies.
</p><p>So instead he just says lamely, “Did you write that?”
</p><p>#
</p><p>Derek is the school loner who plays the piano and Stiles is the jock who becomes enamored of Derek and his music. It could be a “Hallelujah Chorus” kind of love, if they’re able to forgive the past and brave the present together--and deal with the person who has been in love with Stiles for years, and won't give Stiles up without a fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Minor Second

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo this wasn’t supposed to happen like at all, but this morning I had my iPod on shuffle and “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” came on, which made me think of the great Burt Royal play “Dog Sees God” (which is basically just Peanuts fanfiction, as it imagines the kids in high school and it’s all angsty and awesome) and then I started imagining Teen Wolfies as Peanuts characters and basically spent the rest of the day planning this story and got home and wrote the first chapter in like an hour.
> 
> It’s super loosely connected (by like two plot threads) to “Dog Sees God, because apparently reimagining theater pieces about gay boys in high school is my little writing niche. But I promise it isn’t the same plot as “Prayer,” if you were around for that ride, and you don’t need to know anything about “Dog Sees God” or Peanuts to understand this. Speaking of “Prayer,” this probably won’t be updated quite as quickly as that one was, since I’m also planning on writing/posting the Sterek mpreg story that’s been bugging me, but I’ll try and get this up as fast as I can.
> 
>  
> 
> Chapter titles are all names of chords because my degree in music theory isn't going to waste itself.
> 
>  
> 
> This isn’t like a STORY ABOUT HOMOPHOBIA but there is some homophobic language here in the first chapter and probably beyond so be wary of that.
> 
>  
> 
> Mmmmkay I think that’s it so enjoy!

The day before he starts senior year, Stiles murders his teddy bear. It’s an accident, of course— a crime of negligence, rather than malice— but that doesn’t make it any better. Somehow the stupid thing had gotten knocked off his headboard and wound up under a pile of his jeans in the middle of his room. During one of his furious bi-monthly cleaning binges, Stiles had scooped up the entire load of laundry and thrown it into the washer without noticing the furry head poking up through the denim. 

He’d put the washer on “heavy” and added twenty minutes of extra time, since pretty much every pair of pants he owned needed to be washed. 

BoBo hadn’t stood a chance. 

After discovering the ragged remains of his bear, Stiles sits on his bed holding the flat, waterlogged carcass, taking shaky breaths in and out. It would be stupid to get upset over a fucking toy. He’s seventeen, for Christ’s sake, not seven. If anyone had ever found out that he still _slept_ with the thing sometimes he would have needed to burn off his fingertips and start over somewhere in Bolivia with a new identity, so, really, this was for the best. 

He’s just about calmed himself down when the soaked threads attaching BoBo’s one remaining eye snap, sending the glass eyeball careening gruesomely down to the floor. Stiles stares at it in dismay, suddenly feeling like he might cry. This stupid fucking bear wasn’t supposed to go away. That was the whole reason his mom gave him to Stiles as a “sucks that you’re about to be half-orphaned” present ten years ago. 

Great. He’s having a depression spiral and he doesn’t even have his teddy bear to get him through it. 

Stiles isn’t a person with many vices. If he got upset or stressed or even mildly sentimental, he would hold the dumb bear and remember his mom and feel better. And he’s already miserable thinking about the end of summer, and what happened to Erica, and how much this year is going to _suck_ , and the only way he can ever get himself to relax is by hugging the stupid thing, and now he has to get through the most stressful year of his life without it. 

He kind of wants to call Scott and tell him what’s happened, but he knows Scott won’t understand. Actually, that’s not quite true. Scott _will_ understand; he’ll just pretend not to since that wouldn’t be _cool_ , even though Stiles knows full fucking well that Scott keeps part of his own old blankie under his bed. No, Scott isn’t an option, and Scott’s the only person who knows what this bear meant to Stiles. 

Well, there’s one other person. 

But he’s off-limits. Stiles doesn’t even have his phone number, and thinking of how that conversation would go makes him snort. _Yo, buddy, it’s been a while. Remember the teddy bear my mom gave me right before she died? I drowned him in the washer and now I’m having an existential crisis. Hey, speaking of parents… visit your dad in prison lately? Well, gotta go. Hope Jackson doesn’t beat you up too badly tomorrow. Good talk!_

Yeah, no. There’s no talking to Derek Hale. 

Fucking Derek Hale. 

Along with the loss of Erica, Derek’s the reason Stiles doesn’t want to go back to school tomorrow. Jackson is probably going to beat the shit out of the poor guy, just like he does every year, and Stiles doesn’t know how to tell him that it’s not funny anymore. Derek doesn’t even fight back. He never even throws a beseeching glance at Stiles for help, even though Stiles is the only person to ever actually make Jackson stop when it goes too far. 

Along with Scott, Stiles used to be Derek’s best friend. But that was years ago, back when they were kids, and, as Stiles has just been so wonderfully reminded, his childhood is dead and gone. 

Stiles sighs and balls up BoBo’s remains, carrying them downstairs to the garbage can. “Bye, old friend,” he mutters sadly as the puts the lid over his bear’s corpse. 

It’s going to be a long year. 

# 

“Oh, fuck me, Stilinski.” Jackson Whittemore stares in dismay at Stiles’s car, neatly parked next to Jackson’s cherry-red Jetta in the Seniors Only parking lot. “Still?” 

Stiles runs his hand protectively over the jeep’s hood, trying to miss the rusty patches so he won’t accidently take off any more of the paint. “She runs like a charm,” he lies. 

“A voodoo charm, maybe.” Jackson actually wrinkles his nose in distaste as they start walking towards the school together, rich snobby bastard. “I saw your father at my dad’s car dealership, like, three times this summer. I thought for sure you’d be junking that piece of shit.” 

“He wanted me to, but Baby’s my baby and you don’t send your baby to her death because she’s a little past prime.” 

“Can’t you get Scott to drive you in? Fuck, I’ll leave ten minutes early to get you if it’ll keep you out of the Deathmobile.” 

Stiles snorts. “Don’t be such a mother hen, Jackson. It’ll ruin your image.” 

“Guys!” Isaac Lahey waves at the boys. He’s sitting with the rest of their friends on the grass near the school sign. It’s right in the middle of the courtyard, as if they’re lording it over the rest of the school, but Stiles doesn’t feel nearly as good about being part of the most popular group of seniors at Beacon Hills High as he thought he would. 

“What took you so long?” one of the girls asks. For a minute, Stiles thinks it’s Erica’s voice, and he looks to find her before he remembers. 

“Car was being funky,” Stiles says, bumping fists with Scott before he sinks down onto the grass and tilts his face up towards the sun, trying his hardest not to think about Erica. The weather is perfect, and he wonders idly if the monitor for his first-period study hall will let him spend the hour outside. It’s cruel and unusual punishment to force a senior to sit silently in the library with all the freshmen. 

“Okay, Lydia,” Scott’s girlfriend Allison says. “Everyone’s here. I know you’re just dying to tell us about the first great party of the year. Spill.” 

Lydia Martin, Jackson’s currently off-again, likely soon to be on-again girlfriend, flips Allison the finger, but she’s grinning. “First of all, I try to provide a public service, and this is how you treat me? And second of all, _I’m_ hosting the first great party of the year. Last week of September, when my parents will be on their cruise. Right after the football game, since hopefully we’ll be advancing to the playoffs.” 

“Fuck yeah,” Jackson says in satisfaction. “I can’t wait to break into your dad’s booze.” 

Lydia smirks at him, and, okay, it looks like they’ll be on-again even sooner than Stiles anticipated. “I know better than anyone that you can’t handle hard liquor.” 

“I can’t handle a lot of things around you, Lyds.” 

“Oh boy,” Scott says to Stiles, grinning that dopey Scott-grin Stiles loves. “It’s good to be back.” 

“I just wish we all were back,” Stiles says quietly, but everyone hears, and a pall falls over the group. 

“Thanks a lot, dude,” Jackson mutters irritably. “You had to ruin it, huh?” 

“So what, we’re supposed to pretend she never existed?” Stiles scowls at the ground. Erica’s been gone since May, and his friends have spent the entire summer acting like they’d never heard her name before. It pisses him off. What if it had been him? Would he be erased from his friends’ lives so easily? 

“We don’t have to go around crying all day like a bunch of fags,” Jackson snaps, making Stiles flinch. Jackson has an awful temper; that’s why he and Lydia never stay together longer than a month or two. Jackson’s eyes suddenly flit over to the parking lot and he smiles, mood changing whip-fast. “Speaking of fags…” 

“Oh, come on,” Allison sighs. 

Stiles knows what Jackson must be seeing without even looking over. The black Ford driven by Derek Hale, like a red flag in front of a bull where Jackson in concerned. It’s the only car that’s older and shittier than Stiles’s, distinguished by the long white scar where Jackson keyed it last year. “No, man,” Stiles says. “It’s the first day.” 

“I fucking hate that guy,” Jackson says, as if he hasn’t even heard Stiles. Maybe he hasn’t. Something just happens to Jackson whenever Derek’s around. It’s been that way ever since he moved to Beacon Hills in fifth grade and took Scott and Stiles under his cool, Chicago-wisdom wing, yet hated Derek on sight for no reason at all. 

“Wait a second.” Lydia squints. “That’s not Derek Hale.” 

“What?” Jackson squints too. “Of course it is. That’s his car.” 

“Well, I’m just saying…” Lydia’s mouth falls open. “Sweet mother of god.” 

“What? What it is?” Stiles scrambles to turn around and look. When he sees it, his mouth falls open too. 

Holy shit. 

That’s Derek Hale, all right, but he’s, uh, _filled out_ , to say the least. He looks like he’s aged five years over the summer, grew at least four inches and thirty pounds, and he’s switched out his too-big wire-rimmed glasses for black square ones that look _amazing_. 

And he has stubble. So much stubble. Not even Jackson could pull off having facial hair; he’d just walked around pretending he was proud of the world’s saddest moustache for a few weeks before they’d had an intervention and forced him to shave it. 

Derek Hale. Stiles swallows and tries his hardest to look unaffected. He will not get a boner over Derek Hale. _He will not get a boner over Derek Hale._ He’s not twelve anymore. Think about anything else. Broccoli. Dead cats. His science teacher, Mr. Harris. 

“Look at all these bitches staring at him,” Lydia says dreamily, her own eyes tracking Hale’s every step as he approaches the school. “Like they’d have a chance. I’ve already decided. He’s mine.” 

Stiles glances nervously at Jackson, who is staring just as intently at Hale, albeit with a _very_ different look in his eyes than in Lydia’s. “Not sure that’s your best idea ever, Lyds.” 

“Yeah, Lydia,” Jackson says lowly. There’s a flush starting to creep up his neck, which can’t be a good sign. “You’re forgetting that you don’t have a penis.” 

Lydia pulls a face. “Don’t start believing your own gossip, Jackson. It’s tacky.” 

“He’s a queer,” Jackson insists. “Everyone knows it.” 

Stiles keeps quiet. It’s been two years since Jackson kicked Derek down in the hallway and then went through his bag to find two Playgirl magazines stuffed in the pages of his math book. Most people suspected Jackson had planted them there, but Stiles has a feeling that wasn’t the case. He remembers the long-ago night when he’d been sleeping over at Derek’s house and he asked Derek what girls he liked in their class. 

“I don’t like girls,” Derek had responded. 

Stiles huffed impatiently. “I know, I know, but someday when we can date, who would you pick?” 

“No,” Derek had said. “I don’t like _girls._ ” 

Stiles hadn’t really understood what he meant back then, but now he does. Because Stiles doesn’t like _girls_ either, something only Scott and his dad knows. Jackson would flip out if learned, and Stiles doesn’t want to deal with it until after graduation. There’s never been a boy he was willing to give his popularity up for, so it didn’t really matter. 

But, fuck, if he keeps thinking about Derek Hale’s new body he’s going to blow his load _and_ his cover all at once. 

“Look at him walking over here, thinking he’s something now,” Jackson says softly, still staring at Hale. “Fucking prick.” 

“Jackson, don’t.” Stiles heart pounds, for some reason. “Look at him. He could _destroy_ you.” 

It’s the wrong thing to say, as Jackson’s hands immediately curl into fists. “You think that little bitch could take me down?” 

“Jackson, seriously. Don’t, okay? _Please._ ” 

Stiles doesn’t know if he’s begging for Jackson’s sake or for Derek’s, but it works. Jackson deflates and turns back to the group. “That’s so sweet, Stilinski,” he teases, color slowly fading from his cheeks. “Trying to protect me and shit.” 

Stiles swears he hears everyone take a breath of relief. “Someone has to reign you in, dude,” he says lightly. Jackson slaps him on the back, just a little too hard, and Scott changes the subject quickly. 

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Derek Hale disappear into the school building. 

# 

It’s a long, strange day. 

Stiles is ridiculously excited when he gets to first period and sees that Derek is in his study hall, only to deflate when Derek immediately hands a pass to the monitor and disappears. Stiles feels sick and fidgety, and all of a sudden he can’t remember if he took his ADHD medicine before he left. It’s all a blur, and once he realizes he might have skipped it it doesn’t matter if he really missed it or not, because now he has it in his mind that he didn’t take it and that’s enough to make him jittery and unfocused for the rest of the day. 

Derek isn’t in his second or third period class, but he’s all anyone can talk about, and all Stiles can _think_ about. He shows up again fourth period, taking a seat near the back. He’s called on to answer two questions and even his voice sounds deeper and older. By the time Stiles gets to lunch, he feels like he’s on Hale-overload. 

But, God, he wants more. 

The girls are still twittering about how hot Hale is now, even Allison. Jackson looks ready to snap his fork in half, and Stiles is relieved when a quick sweep of the cafeteria doesn’t turn up Derek anywhere. The lunchroom is Jackson’s favorite bully-ground and Derek’s been left covered in milk more than once over the past few years. 

As Stiles eats his lunch, he suddenly misses Erica so fiercely he can’t stand it. She was the only one besides Stiles who was brave enough to call Jackson out on bullshit. She was the only person willing to actually talk about stuff that _mattered_. 

And everyone’s just pretending like she was never here. 

And without his ADHD medication keeping him in check, Stiles currently feels like tiny stiches are being unraveled all over his body. 

And it’s going to be an entire lonely year of hiding his sexuality and missing Erica and trying to keep Jackson from killing Derek Hale. 

And just like that Stiles can’t bear to sit still for another minute. 

He bolts up and throws away his lunch, ignoring Scott shouting after him asking where he’s going. As soon as he steps outside the lunchroom he feels a little better, so he just starts walking. 

The arts hallway, so named because it houses the theater, practice rooms, and kiln, tends to be deserted, so he heads down that way. He closes his eyes once he gets there and leans against a row of lockers, and that’s when he hears the piano music. 

It’s soft and sweet, obviously a classical piece even to an untrained ear like Stiles’s. Whoever is playing it is amazing, handling quick little notes at the top of the scale with ease. Stiles starts following the music without even thinking so he can hear better. 

It’s coming from the practice room all the way down at the end of the hallway, as secluded as is possible in the building. Stiles peers inside and feels his heart thump painfully. 

Of course. 

Derek Hale. 

He’s bent over the piano, completely consumed; there’s sheet music in front of him but his eyes are closed as he plays. His fingers, long and thin and beautiful, are flying over the keys and Stiles is transfixed as he watches. 

The music goes quiet, making Stiles think of a midday nap on a warm summer afternoon, then crescendos, bringing to mind the kind of gauzy sex scenes Stiles has only seen in art movies. Derek’s brow furrows slightly as he crosses his left hand over to the right end of the piano and quickly plays three notes over and over in quick succession, creating a high fluttering that nearly makes Stiles gasp. His fingers then travel down the scale and ends the song slowly and gently. 

Stiles clasp without even thinking, and Derek nearly jumps a foot, spinning on the bench to see who his audience is. 

“Oh my God, Derek.” Stiles shakes his head. “What was that?” 

Derek’s face turns bright red. “What…were you _listening_ to me?” 

Stiles opens his mouth, ready to tell Derek that the Derek had led him here with the music like some sort of snake charmer, and he can’t believe how good Derek is, and will Derek please play something else because listening to him had been the first thing to make Stiles happy since he’d woken up this morning. Then his mouth snaps shut as he remembers that he’s talking to _Derek Hale_. The boy who used to be his best friend. The boy he’s been watching Jackson torture all throughout high school. The boy whose summer transformation from sullen wimp to sex god has been keeping Stiles’s brain and dick occupied all day with some _very_ inappropriate fantasies. 

So instead he just says lamely, “Did you write that?” 

Derek’s eyebrows make a V. “It’s Chopin,” he says flatly. “ _Nocturne_ in E flat major. And you’re not supposed to be here.” 

“I heard you playing and I wanted to see who it was.” 

“And it’s me. Aren’t you lucky. Do you want to run back and get your buddies, or should I assume they’re standing right behind you?” 

Stiles frowns, surprised by the venom in Derek’s voice. “It’s just me.” 

“Great.” Derek turns back to the piano. “Now go.” He starts playing again, something simple, pointedly ignoring Stiles. 

Stiles knows he should probably leave, but his ADHD was momentarily soothed by the music and is now back in full force, and, as always, he just starts rambling to try and calm himself down. “It’s just so weird that it’s you, because I was thinking about you yesterday. Do you remember that bear my mom got me right before she died? BoBo? I accidently destroyed him. And I was thinking about you because I remember how you and your mom came to get me the day she died, since my dad didn’t want me underfoot while he was planning her service and all, and I was crying, and you were the one who remembered to grab BoBo right before we left. And I always thought that was so nice of you, to remember my bear. You were always thinking about stuff like that. I know it’s dumb I kept him around, but, I mean, I guess you’re the only one who really understands why he would be important to me. And— ” Stiles breaks off when Derek smacks his hand down on the keys. “What?” 

Derek shakes his head, staring at the piano. “You’re amazing,” he says. “Really. Only you would think it’s appropriate to break a six-year period of silence with a stream-of-consciousness monologue about your fucking teddy bear.” 

Stiles flushes. “We’ve talked in the past six years.” 

“Of course, how could I have forgotten? Last year you said to me, _‘Come on, Derek, just say it_ ’ when Jackson tried to make me say, and I quote, ‘I love big cock.’” Derek chuckles humorlessly. “My arm was twisted up behind my back so that I couldn’t even breathe, but yes, I distinctly remember hearing your voice.” 

Shame creeps into Stiles’s chest. “I just…I knew he would let you go if you gave him what he wanted.” 

“Yeah? That’s the problem with you. The only thing that matters is getting what you want. But honestly, Stiles, I’m not sure what you want from me right now, and I’m trying to enjoy one of the few hours of my day that don’t suck, and I can only assume that Jackson is going to charge in here any minute and kick my ass. So can you just go?” 

“Jackson’s not going to kick your ass anymore,” Stiles says lamely. “Look at you.” 

“Good point. In fact, I could kick _your_ ass if I wanted to, huh? A little retaliation doesn’t sounds all that bad, honestly, so let me repeat myself one more time, and then I won’t be so nice: _get out_.” 

Stiles closes his eyes, feeling like shit. “Okay,” he says numbly. “Sorry.” 

He turns to leave, and hovers at the door. Maybe it’s because Derek hasn’t started playing again, or maybe he’s just an asshole who can’t stand to have Derek thinking badly of him, but he feels compelled to explain himself. “I know I should have stopped him a long time ago,” he says, staring away from Derek. “But when we started middle school, and Jackson moved here, he didn’t like you and you started pulling away. And everything happened with your family and nobody knew what to say to you, and it was just like our friendship was over. Then the next year Jackson started being a dick, and…I don’t know. I convinced myself he was just messing with you. The way he messed with all of us. As long as we were all laughing, it was like we were still friends.” He takes a deep breath. “And by the time I realized you weren’t laughing anymore, and it wasn’t friendly, it was too late.” 

“It’s never too late to stop being an asshole,” Derek says quietly. 

“Okay, then. I’ll stop being an asshole. Jackson won’t touch you again. I’ll make sure of it.” 

Derek snorts. “Like you said, I don’t think he’s going to try now anyway.” 

“Is that…I mean, did you get this way so he would stop hurting you?” 

“I spent my summer either at the piano or at the gym. When junior year ended with a dislocated shoulder, I figured I would either have to learn how to box or I’d have to get strong enough that nobody would fuck with me, and boxing might mess up my hands.” 

“It was really that bad?” 

“After four years you just kind of get sick of being kicked around. I know that’s tough for Mr. Popular to understand, but give it your best shot.” Derek’s voice is thick with sarcasm. 

Stiles winces. “I know it’s not enough, but I really am sorry, Derek. You were a better friend when we were ten than _they’ve_ been all through high school. You deserved better. And I’m sorry.” 

Derek is quiet for so long Stiles almost just walks away, but then he asks, “So how did you destroy BoBo?” 

Stiles smiles, ridiculously relieved. “Put him in the washer.” 

“Dumbass.” 

“I opened it up and found one of his eyes just sitting there.” 

“Fuck, that’s creepy. Can you save him?” 

“Nah, I just tossed him. I can’t sew. Can you?” 

Derek snorts. “What, because I’m gay?” 

Stiles tries not to react to Derek admitting it so blatantly, even though he’s suddenly so incredibly relieved again he wants to jump around the room. _Dumb_. “No, I just figured, you’re secretly Liberace and I had no idea, so who knows what other talents you have?” 

Derek kind of smirks. “Just the piano.” 

“When did you start playing?” 

“I’ve been playing for years. Don’t you remember?” 

Stiles thinks back, and a grin splits his face. “Oh, yeah! Your mom made us stop playing capture the flag so you could practice!” At the mention of Derek’s mother a sudden awkwardness fills the room, and Stiles blushes again. “Sorry.” 

“It’s okay.” 

“I know I told you before, but I loved your mom, dude. She was so great after mine passed.” 

“Yeah, she was a good mom.” Derek presses middle c a few times. “I really got into the piano after everything happened. I don’t know. It made me forget.” 

“I can understand that.” 

“Yeah. I guess you would.” 

“What are you practicing for?” 

“Julliard.” Derek toggles between two keys. “It’s a long shot, but I audition in November.” 

“You’re seriously amazing. And I’ve never even liked piano music.” 

Derek finally looks at Stiles. He doesn’t smile, not exactly, but there’s something soft in his face. “Thanks.” 

The bell shatters the moment and Stiles jumps. He doesn’t want to go back to class, but Derek is already gathering up his things. “Wait,” Stiles says. “I don’t want us to go back to acting like we don’t know each other.” 

“We don’t,” Derek says harshly. The bell seems to have snapped him back to reality, all that softness fled. 

“Well, then, I want us to know each other.” Stiles grabs Derek’s arm. “Please, Derek. I want to make it up to you.” 

“Stiles…” 

“I want to be your friend again,” Stiles says. 

“Sure.” Derek smiles bitterly. “It’s easy to want to be friends with me now that I’m not going to be the school punching bag anymore.” 

He has a point, which sucks, but Stiles keeps eye contact with him. “It’s easy to want to be friends with you because you’re you,” he says. “It was always easy before.” 

Derek hesitates. “I’m here every first period and lunch period,” he says after a long pause. 

“Okay.” 

Derek nods as if something has been decided, and walks away. 

# 

The next day Stiles signs out of study hall and walks down to the practice room. Derek is playing already, but he stops when he sees Stiles. 

“You came.” 

“I did.” 

“I really do have to practice.” 

Stiles sits down on the floor. “Go ahead, maestro.” 

That devolved smile appears on Derek’s face again. “So, what, I’m giving free concerts now?” 

“Only for your biggest fan,” Stiles says, before he blushes at his own forwardness. “What are you playing?” 

“Mendelssohn’s _Presto e molto vivace_ in E major.” 

Stiles claps his hands. “My favorite! How did you know?” 

Derek snorts and turns back to the piano. 

It’s just as good as yesterday. 

When he finishes they talk about their favorite memories from when they were kids. Stiles says it was the sleepovers. Derek says it was when his dad took them to the Museum of Natural History and they both bought toy dinosaurs at the gift shop. 

They go quiet at the mention of Derek’s dad, and then Derek starts talking about other day trips they took as kids, and it’s okay again. 

“This was fun,” Derek says when the bell rings, sounding surprised. 

# 

At lunch Scott asks why Stiles looks so happy. 

“I don’t know,” Stiles says. “It’s a good day.” 

“Hey,” Danny says, “What happened to Hale? I figured he’d have an entourage of girls following him.” 

Allison shrugs. “He’s a mystery man. Nobody knows where he goes.” 

“He’d better hope I don’t find him,” Jackson starts, and Stiles smacks down his spoon, as though Jackson’s words have snapped a string inside of him. 

“If you fuck with him, we’re gonna have a problem, man. Got it?” 

Everyone stares at him. Scott is kind of grinning, as if he’s been waiting for this moment for a while. 

“The fuck is your deal?” Jackson says, looking stunned. 

“I’m sick of it. He’s a good guy, and you’re a dick. Cut it out.” Stiles goes back to his food, and after a moment conversation slowly resumes. Jackson stares at him a few times, but Derek’s name isn’t mentioned again. 

# 

On Wednesday Derek plays Liszt’s _Au bord d'une source_ , and, at Stiles’s urging, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.” 

They talk about lacrosse and piano, Stiles’s dad and Derek’s aunt 

Stiles comes back at the end of lunch and Derek doesn’t play anything. They just talk about Stiles’s friends and loneliness and what kind of dog they would get if they could. They both agree that they would get a goldendoodle, or maybe a Labrador. 

When the lunch bell rings they exchange phone numbers. Stiles spends two hours that night typing and retyping a message he never sends. 

# 

On Thursday Derek plays Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” and they talk about Erica and Derek’s father and whether or not they believe in God. 

That night Stiles dreams that he’s sitting in a dark room, listening to Derek’s music piping through the walls. Derek comes up behind him and begins kissing the back of his neck, then runs his hands all down Stiles body. Those long, talented fingers wrap around his cock and stroke, bringing Stiles a rush of pleasure that’s just as sweet and silky as the notes still bleeding into the room. 

Stiles wakes up so rock-hard he barely touches himself before he comes. He digs his nails into his skin as he rides it out so he won’t whimper Derek’s name. 

# 

On Friday Derek plays Bach’s Prelude No.1 in C major. Stiles sits on the bench next to him so he can watch his hands. When he finishes they sit in silence together for a long time. 

Stiles wants to text Derek all weekend, but he can’t find the right thing to say. 

# 

On Monday Stiles is intercepted on the way out of study hall by Coach Finstock, who begs him to come out for soccer even though Stiles is adamantly a one-sport man. It takes almost ten minutes for Stiles to extricate himself, and he’s supremely annoyed at losing out on his time with Derek. 

When he reaches the practice room Derek is playing something dark and moody, stabbing at the keys with an uncommon irritation. “Hey,” Stiles says. “You okay?” 

Derek stops playing and stares at him. “You’re here.” 

“Of course I am.” Stiles frowns. “Did you think I wasn’t coming?” 

Derek shrugs. “I didn’t really care,” he says harshly before turning back to the keys. 

Stiles stares at him, stung. “Okay…” He winces as Derek starts playing again, jarringly discordant chords struck purposefully loudly, as if he’s trying to drive Stiles away. 

Derek hits a sour note and smacks the keys. “Fuck!” 

“What’s wrong with you?” Stiles goes to sit next to Derek on the bench like he did last week, but Derek is kind of scaring him right now, so he hangs back. “Do you want me to leave?” 

Derek doesn’t answer. 

“Please don’t make me leave,” Stiles says quietly. 

Derek pushes away from the piano. “You’re going to want to eventually, you know. Once you miss your friends, this is going to get boring.” 

“I won’t do that again.” 

“Have you told your friends you’re coming here?” 

“No, but— ” 

“So it’s just a coincidence that someone wrote _fag_ on my locker this morning?” Derek turns, eyes flashing, and Stiles’s heart sinks. 

“I didn’t know.” 

“See, for all I know you’ve been reporting back everything I say to your buddy so he really has something to torture me with. Since _fag_ is starting to lose its punch.” 

“I’m not, Derek. I swear.” 

“Why should I trust you?” 

“I don’t know!” Stiles rakes his fingers through his hair in frustration. “It’s just the truth!” 

“That’s the best you can do, Stiles? Really?” 

Stiles can’t think of a response. 

“You used to be my best friend,” Derek says. 

“I know.” 

“I waited for you to snap out of it for so long. I kept thinking that you wouldn’t just abandon me like that. Especially considering what happened to my family.” Derek’s eye twitches slightly, the slightest and most painful way Stiles has ever seen someone show emotion. “But you did.” 

This is the one topic they’ve avoided for the past week. “I’m sorry,” Stiles says desperately. “Jackson moved here and was so magnetic and popular and…I was a shitty asshole and _I’m sorry_. If you can’t forgive me, that’s your right, and I’ll go, but I’ll only go if that’s what you want.” 

Derek’s reply comes so quietly Stiles almost misses it. “I don’t.” 

Stiles sags in relief. “Good.” Derek scuffs his shoe against the floor. “Do you really not know who wrote on my locker?” 

“No. I told Jackson to leave you alone, but it might have been him. I’ll find out.” 

“Thanks.” 

“Are you going to beat him up?” 

Derek shakes his head. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want to be left alone.” 

_Even by me?_ Stiles hugs himself. “Can you ever forgive me for what I did?” 

Derek chooses his words carefully. “I don’t know, Stiles. I was never really angry at you, it just _hurt_. You can forgive someone for making you angry, because you just stop being angry, but I don’t know how you forgive someone for hurting you. Because it’s not like all that pain can be erased.” The words are a little halting, stumbled over as though Derek is struggling to put his feelings into words. Stiles’s heart pinches as he thinks of how alone Derek is— no friends at school; no family except his aunt. No wonder he loves the piano so much; it always talks back in a language he understands. 

“I know. I understand.” 

“I wouldn’t have done it to you.” Derek’s voice drops even lower. “I keep wondering if that means you never cared about me the way I cared about you. Because I would never, ever have done it to you.” 

“I cared about you, Der.” _Too much,_ he almost adds, but he stops just in time. Derek doesn’t need to know that Stiles’s first wet dream had starred his best friend. That for weeks Stiles hadn’t been able to look at Derek the same way, so that it was almost a relief when they drifted apart and Derek sunk into himself until the boy Stiles had started to want was gone. Especially not now that it’s happening _again_. 

Derek glances over at him as if he’s trying to gauge the truthfulness of Stiles’s answer, and whatever he finds seems to assuage him. “Look, I don’t want to be a little bitch about this,” Derek says. “I just had to say it.” 

“I know.” Stiles sighs. “Look, an apology needs an offer and an acceptance. I’m offering. You don’t have to accept. Seriously. You’re under no obligation.” 

Derek chews his lips, then shrugs. “I accept,” he says. 

“Really? You’re sure?” 

“Yeah. Whatever.” Derek actually smiles a real smile. “It’s impossible to stay mad at you.” 

Stiles grins broadly. “Fuck yeah, man! Give me five!” 

Derek rolls his eyes but slaps hands with Stiles, still smiling. “I’m too wired to play,” he admits. 

“It’s my turn to play for you anyway.” Stiles sits at the bench and stretches his fingers dramatically. “Prepare your ears and your body for this upcoming masterpiece.” He lowers his fingers and starts playing “Heart and Soul,” terribly. 

Derek snorts and sits next to him. He starts playing the top part. “You’re too good,” Stiles complains. 

“Yeah, that’s the point of a duet. I’m drowning out your mistakes.” 

“I thought the point of a duet was to be in harmony.” 

“We are in harmony. Hear it?” 

Stiles clumsily hits a random note. “I wish I was as good as you.” 

“You’re doing fine. Here, I’ll play something up top and you echo it. Really simple. Like you said, offer and acceptance. That’s all a duet is.” Derek’s shoulder presses against Stiles’s. He plays a few notes, and, after a second, Stiles nods and copies him. “Yeah, you got it.” Their hands move closer together, Stiles’s pinky brushing Derek’s thumb. 

When the song ends Stiles turns and kisses Derek without thinking. 

Derek pulls away, shocked. 

There’s a long few beats of silence. 

“What was that?” Derek asks finally, voice shaking. 

Stiles doesn’t look away. “Offer,” he says. 

There’s another pause. 

“Acceptance,” Derek mouths before he kisses Stiles back. It’s harder than Stiles’s kiss, and much longer. Derek’s arm tightens around Stiles to support him, and Stiles leans back to make it easier. His hand slips on the keys and accidently strikes a high c, a pure, sweet sound; a warning chime that neither of them can hear.


	2. C Augmented Seventh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took forever! I'm v. sorry. RL got crazy, and this chapter has a lot of set-up, which was a bore to write. Hopefully updates will be more regular moving forward!

Stiles can’t sit still in his classes for the rest of the day. He fidgets so much that his teachers keep calling on him, obviously exasperated, and he stumbles through answers that don’t make any sense. In the classes he shares with Derek he keeps craning his head to look over at him, and Derek avoids his gaze. At lunchtime he goes straight to the practice room, but Derek isn’t there, and the room looks so different without him that Stiles just stands in the doorway and blinks before he finally turns away. 

They had kissed until the second-period bell rang, and then Stiles had pulled back and grinned and whispered, “To be continued?” and Derek had nodded, glassy-eyed. 

And Stiles had meant it. He does want it to be continued. 

As soon as he gets home, texts Derek: _Are you ok?_

The reply comes almost ten minutes later: _Yes._

Stiles frowns at his phone. Maybe Derek just doesn’t understand how texting really works, since Stiles imagines he doesn’t do it too often. But still, even a Neanderthal would realize Stiles was looking for a little more than that. 

_I looked for you during lunch._

_Library._

_Were you avoiding me?_

There’s another interminable pause before the reply: _Yes._

It feels like a punch in the gut. 

_Because of the kiss?_

_Yes_

 _Do you not like me or what?_

Stiles jabs at the keys in frustration. Derek had certainly seemed to like him while they were kissing. 

_It’s not that._

 _So what is it?_

 _You said you wanted to be my friend again because you changed. But it was really just because I changed. You like the way I look now. If I still looked like I did last year, you wouldn’t give a shit about me._

Stiles stares at his phone in sick dismay. 

_That’s not true_ , he tries. 

Derek doesn’t dignify that with a response and Stiles sighs before he starts typing again. 

_Can I come over?_

# 

Derek stares at his phone. 

_Can I come over?_

Derek has never had a visitor here. It was the one perk of being friendless: he never had to worry about introducing people to his great-aunt or walking past the room currently serving as a dusty shrine to his father. Derek could handle being hated, but not pitied, and even his fiercest tormentors couldn’t walk out of here without pitying him. 

His phone beeps again. 

_Please?_

Derek closes his eyes. Maybe it wouldn’t be terrible to have Stiles over. It would be a test, to see if Stiles could still want Derek after all of this, of if he runs away. 

Derek texts his address without commentary, and Stiles replies immediately: _Give me fifteen minutes._

Here goes nothing. 

Derek goes downstairs and finds Mabel napping in the sunroom. “Aunt Mabel!” he shouts, shaking her shoulder to get her to wake up. 

She blinks at him. “Oh!” she says in her croaking voice. “Charles!” 

Derek shakes his head in immediate denial. “I’m Derek,” he says. Ever since he put on the muscle he’s been seeing his father in his features. He hates it, especially the way Aunt Mabel confuses him for his father now almost daily. 

“No,” she agrees, sounding annoyed, as if he’s purposefully tricked her. “Not Charles. Charles is away— ” 

“— In _jail_ , Aunt Mabel— ” 

“— Because of those lies that horrible boy told about him.” She nods sagely and Derek sighs. He’s been hearing about the lies the horrible boy told for years as Aunt Mabel slides further and further into dementia. 

“They weren’t lies,” Derek says steadily. 

“My nephew is a good boy.” Aunt Mabel’s lip trembles. She looks so pitiful that Derek can’t even hate her for calling him a liar or continually championing his father, even after all these years. 

“I have a friend coming over,” Derek says loudly. 

“That’s nice.” Aunt Mabel finds her glasses on the nightstand and puts them on without wiping them clear. She blinks up at Derek through the glass. She’s always especially loopy after a midday nap, but every time Derek wonders if she just won’t come back from her own insanity. “Is it Talia coming over, Charlie?” 

“Talia’s dead.” 

“Oh, Charlie!” Aunt Mabel clasps her hands over her mouth. “Not your Talia! What about the children?” 

Someday, when her mind is too far gone to salvage, Derek will play along with her, but for now he just steadfastly guides her back to reality, like pulling a fish out of the water and forcing it to gasp in the air. “They’re dead too, Aunt Mabel. I’m not Charlie. Charlie is in jail.” 

“Oh, my poor Charlie. His whole family gone? But he loved them…” 

“He killed them.” Derek sighs. “Aunt Mabel, it’s Derek, your grand-nephew. Charles is my father. He killed everyone else. You know that. You remember.” 

She whimpers and turns her head away, and Derek feels almost cruel pressing it. He sighs again and turns on the television for her. Aunt Mabel always needs to be in some fictional world, and _The Waltons_ is a better one than the one she’s created. In Aunt Mabel’s world, Derek’s father didn’t burn down his home, killing everyone except Derek, and was instead persecuted by a crooked police force and his horrible son. 

But it’s not the truth. Charles Hale _had_ burned his house to the ground, hoping to blame it on the wiring, unaware that Derek had been camping outside in his Boy Scouts tent because Mars was supposed to be visible that night. Derek had seen his father outside; had watched the house go up in flames. When the fire department arrived he had raised his finger and pointed it at his father and screamed, not words, just an endless howl of furious accusation. 

Aunt Mabel hates him for the lies she thinks he spun, but sometimes he thinks that’s better than pitying him for the terrible truth he had to tell. He hates being known as the kid whose dad murdered his family. Until he's finally out of here, hopefully at Julliard, that's all he'll ever be. 

The doorbell rings and Derek swallows hard. Stiles is waiting on the other side of the door, hands in his pockets. He flashes Derek an easy grin. 

“This place looks like it was part of the Underground Railroad.” 

“Something tells me my aunt was on the other side of history on that one.” Derek steps aside so Stiles can enter. “It’s kind of gloomy.” 

“No shit.” Stiles whistles as he looks around. “Is it haunted?” 

“Probably.” Derek stuffs his own hands in his pockets, unconsciously mirroring Stiles. _Just get this over with._ “Look, this doesn’t have to be a whole thing…” 

“I like you,” Stiles says simply. Derek blinks, taken aback; he's forgotten that Stiles is the kind of guy who likes to get to the point without a lot of fuck-around. “A lot. I was shitty towards you for a long time, and I don’t deny that. And yeah, I’m really attracted to you now.” He blushes. “Like, change-the-sheets-in-the-middle-of-the-night attracted to you.” 

That should gross Derek out, but instead he can feel himself getting hard at the idea of Stiles jerking it in the dead of night, panting Derek’s name. 

“I _have_ changed,” Stiles insists. “And I’m a little shallow, but I’m not _that_ shallow. I don’t care if you get those old Coke-bottle glasses out and gain fifty pounds, as long as you still play the piano with all the grace and say the same snarky little things and give me that cocky half-smile you’re so good at. Those are the things I _really_ like.” He sucks in a deep breath. “And that’s the end of the speech I have prepared for you, so…yeah.” 

“I just don’t know if I’m ever going to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Derek confesses in a rush, because all he wants to do is kiss Stiles again, and he has to have more discipline that that. “I second-guess everything. Everything. You kissed me and all I could think about was why it shouldn’t be a good thing. I don’t know why. I don’t— ” Derek cuts off what he almost said: _I don’t know why I can’t let myself be happy._

“Because I hurt you,” Stiles says steadily. “That’s fair. But if you can…just trust me a little. Put a trust-penny in the trust-bank, and each day add another penny until you’ve got a fortune.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Derek says. “I fucking hate your metaphors.” 

This time he leans in to kiss Stiles first. Stiles color is a little high from the drama of his speech and Derek cups Stiles’s cheek so he can feel the flame with his thumb. 

“Play something for me,” Stiles whispers when he pulls away. 

“The piano is kind of out-of-tune.” 

“I don’t care.” 

“Fine.” Derek grabs Stiles’s hand and leads him to the parlor. It’s the only room besides his bedroom he’s cleared out of all mementoes of his father, though Aunt Mabel will sneak a little portrait in whenever she can. He sits on the bench and Stiles slides next to him. 

“Any requests?” 

Stiles idly presses one of the keys and rests his head on Derek’s shoulder. “Something you’ve never played for anyone else.” 

Derek hesitates and then begins. The notes float, just a bit out-of-tune to Derek’s trained ear. He can feel Stiles sit up straight, obviously realizing that it’s not a classical piece. Derek closes his eyes, the better to focus on the music, and lets the notes crescendo until he can feel each one like a sword in his chest. When it just starts to become too much he brings it down until it’s soft and sweet. He crosses his right hand, beginning the dissonance, and ends on an unresolved chord. Stiles waits for a minute and then exhales. 

“What was that?” 

Derek stares at the keys. “Did you like it?” 

“Like it? God, it was gorgeous. It was so _sad_. Who wrote that?” 

“I did.” 

“You?” 

Derek nods. 

“Holy shit, Der. That’s the best thing you’ve ever played.” Stiles shakes his head in amazement. “How did I not know you could do that? What’s it called?” 

Derek blushes. “Um…‘The Sacrifice of the Ewe.’” 

Stiles stares at him. “Dude…no. Just no. Come on.” 

“In Hebrew, the word of “female lamb” is _talehya_ ,” Derek confesses in a rush, without looking at Stiles. “And a female lamb is a ewe, and my mom’s name was Talia, and they use to offer ewes as a burnt sacrifice to God, and…I don’t know. It fit.” 

Stiles is quiet, and then his hand comes up to rub a soothing circle on Derek’s back. “Okay.” 

“It’s not like I’m ever going to sell the song. It just needed a name and that one fit.” 

“No, you’re right. It’s a perfect name.” Stiles’s voice is soft, but steady, without a trace of pity. “Keep it.” 

Derek nods. 

“You should keep writing music if you’re that good.” 

“Maybe. Most of my energy goes into playing.” 

Stiles snuggles up against him. “Are we dating?” he asks softly. 

“Do you want to be?” 

“Yeah.” 

Derek swallows. “Do people have to know?” He can feel Stiles go still, and he hastens to clarify. “I’ve only been the school punching bag for four years. I don’t want to go straight from that to ‘Stiles Stilinski’s boyfriend.’ That’s a whole new target on my back just when I’ve gotten rid of the last one.” 

“I understand.” Stiles smiles at him, a little forced. “But can we make a deal? I’ll help you make friends again, without revealing _this_ , and in return, when you’re ready, we go public.” 

“That’s fair.” Derek smirks down at Stiles. “But good luck shopping me around. I’ve got baggage people are _not_ interested in helping shoulder.” 

“In a month, you’ll be one of the most popular guys in school. That’s the Stiles guarantee.” Stiles grins up at him, and it’s so intoxicating that Derek can’t resist leaning down to kiss him again. They make out for forty-five minutes before Stiles has to finally go home. 

# 

_Stiles: Do you ever miss Derek?_

 _Scott: Oh fuck yeah_

 _

Stiles: Enough to be friends with him again? 

Scott: We’ve treated him like shit for years. Derek fucking hates us. 

Stiles: What if he didn’t? 

Scott: I’m listening… but honestly I have zero interest in Jackson kicking the shit out of me, so I’m not leading any Derek Hale parade. Just saying. 

# 

Stiles: Derek Hale. 

Lydia: What about him? 

Stiles: I’m tired of Jackson fucking with him. He’s a cool guy. I think we should all hang out. 

Lydia: ? 

Lydia: Ok, I don’t know what your goal is here. 

Lydia: And it’s not that Hale doesn’t seem great now 

Lydia: (Great= hot as fuck) 

Lydia: So I would be all about it but Jackson’s got some weird thing about Hale and we’re just starting to maybe get back together, so I don’t want to piss him off 

Lydia: Sorry. 

Stiles: Its ok 

Stiles: Thanks anyway 

# 

Stiles: Remember how much fun we used to have at sleepovers with Derek Hale? You want to hang out with him this weekend and see if we can all be friends again? 

Isaac: One time Jackson and I were in the gym and this meathead started mocking Jackson just to be a dick and I laughed along with him because I was trying to diffuse the tension, and when we went outside Jackson punched me in the face and threw my bike in the dumpster and said ‘Don’t ever fuck with me’ in the dead voice of an evil robot. 

Isaac: Short answer: no, I don’t want to hang out with Derek Hale. 

# 

Stiles: Hey, you know Derek Hale? I hear he’s really good at biology. We should all study together. 

Allison: I refuse to co-sign on your death wish. 

# 

Stiles: Hey, can we talk about Derek Hale? 

Jackson: Only if you’re going to apologize for that shit you pulled at the lunchtable. 

Stiles: Opposite 

Stiles: I want him to start sitting with us at lunch 

Stiles: Starting tomorrow 

Jackson: You clearly have some sort of charity thing going on with him, and that’s whatever 

Jackson: I‘ll let you have that 

Jackson: And I won’t actively go out of my way to fuck with him because's you're my bro 

Jackson: But if Derek Hale sits at our table, or shows up anywhere he doesn’t belong, or tries talking to any of my friends, I’ll make him wish he was never born 

Jackson: And that’s a fucking promise 

Stiles: Fuck you, man. Seriously. 

Jackson: Kiss my ass. 

Jackson: Don’t forget we have 5 am workouts starting Saturday 

Jackson: I’ll pick you up if you want a ride. 

Stiles: k.

_

# 

Stiles scowls at his phone. His friends being fucking cowards shouldn’t surprise him as much as it does, but damn, is it disappointing. 

He wishes he could figure out just what it is about Derek that Jackson hates so much, but it’s an enigma. A huge, stupid, pointless enigma. 

Getting friends for Derek might be harder than Stiles had thought. 

Stiles’s dad knocks on his door and sticks his head in. “Hey, kiddo,” he says. “You busy?” 

“Nope.” 

“I have some news.” John Stilinski glances around Stiles’s room and grimaces a little at the mess. “You should clean this. Anyway, you remember Kira?” 

“Yeah, of course!” Stiles grins. Kira Yukimura had been an exchange student who stayed with the Stilinskis sophomore year. He’d missed her like crazy once she went back home, and though they’d promised to stay in touch the time difference made it almost impossible. 

“She’s coming back. Apparently her family wanted to emigrate to the States, and she loved it here so much that they decided to come right to Beacon Hills.” John grins. He loved Kira too; it was impossible not to. “They’ll be here next Friday.” 

“Are you serious?” Stiles bolts off his bed. “Dad, that’s amazing!” 

“I thought you’d be excited.” 

“Kira’s coming!” Stiles can’t stop grinning. She couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. Just when he was missing Erica so terribly and starting to get sick of his other friends; just when he needed a confidant about Derek so badly… 

Derek! Kira isn’t afraid of Jackson— in fact, she’d downright disliked him all throughout sophomore year. Well, there’s one freebie friend for Derek. 

Suddenly his task doesn’t seem so daunting after all. 

# 

The next day at lunch Jackson slams down his day, face twisted into an ugly scowl. “What’s wrong with you?” Isaac asks, scooting down the bench a little as if he’s afraid of being attacked. 

“His parents caught us last night,” Lydia explains matter-of-factly. “ _In flagrante delicto._ ” At everyone’s blank expressions she rolls her eyes and supplies, “Doing it.” 

“Ew,” Scott groans. 

“I’m grounded,” Jackson growls. “Like a fucking five-year-old. I can’t even go to Lydia’s party.” 

Everyone makes little noises of sympathy, but Stiles’s mind starts racing. He’s so busy making plans that he doesn’t realize at first that Jackson’s talking to him: “— figure they won’t mind if I say I’m studying though, so you want to come keep me company that night? We haven’t played CoD in ages.” Jackson grins at him, reminding Stiles again why they had been such good friends for years. When Jackson’s not being a scary motherfucker, he’s charming as all hell. 

“Oh, I would,” Stiles says slowly. “But I was really looking forward to the party, so…” 

Jackson’s mouth flops open. “You’re going? You never go to parties!” 

Stiles shrugs. “This is an important one. We’ll be thinking of you, though!” 

It _will_ be an important party, Stiles thinks, while everyone goes back to teasing Jackson and Lydia. Because, without Jackson there, the party would be the perfect platform to reintroduce Derek to the school. Like a cotillion to introduce a debutante; the new Derek would charm everyone, sneaking his way into the popular crowd, and by the time Jackson knew what happened everyone would love Derek so much that Jackson would have no chance but to fall in line. 

And then Derek and Stiles could make things official. 

Stiles grins and bolts down his lunch so he can hurry down to the practice room and tell Derek his plan. 

Everything’s coming up Sterek. 

Note to self, he thinks, grimacing. Come up with a better couple name before we go official.


	3. Half-Diminished Seventh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for homophobic language

“So let me get this straight,” Kira says. They’re laying together in Stiles’s bed, heads touching. “You and that kid that Jackson used to pick on are hooking up in secret, and he won’t let you tell anyone until you convince people not to hate him anymore?” 

“That’s about it in a nutshell, yeah.” 

“Damn.” Kira scoots back a little on the bed, cracking their heads together. “So that’s the reason you didn’t meet me at the airport, huh? You were having secret sex?” 

Stiles rubs his head and scowls. “We’re not having sex yet.” 

“Ooh, _yet_.” 

“I really, really like him, Kira.” Stiles sighs almost dreamily. For the past week he’s spent almost every afternoon with Derek— Derek practices piano while Stiles listens, they talk for a little while, and then they make out before Stiles goes home. It's kind of amazing. “And you will too, I promise.” 

“Anyone you like, I like.” Kira flops over so she’s laying on top of Stiles. She grins down at him. “I really missed you.” 

“I missed you too.” Stiles shoves Kira off of him. “Even though you have _no_ sense of boundaries.” 

“Can I see this handsome man? I just remember a little string bean with big glasses.” 

Stiles grabs his phone and pulls up a picture he took yesterday of them both. They’re sitting at the piano; Stiles’s head is on Derek’s lap and he’s peering at the camera while Derek, a second behind the flash, is looking down at Stiles with a tiny smile. 

“Damn,” Kira says again. 

“I know.” 

“He’s hotter than Scott.” 

Stiles pokes her. “He’s still dating Allison, homewrecker.” 

“Boo.” Kira flicks through his pictures, stopping on a selfie of the entire crew taken on the last day of summer. “Hey, why isn’t Erica isn’t in any of these? She stopped responding to my emails months ago.” 

Stiles’s heart sinks. “Oh. Um…Erica’s gone.” 

“What? Where did she go?” Kira’s eyes widen. “Is she okay?” 

“No,” Stiles replies softly. “She’s not. She’s alive, but…she’s probably not going to come back. I wish I could tell you more than that, but we’re not really supposed to talk about it.” 

Kira leans over and hugs him. She’s bony, but strong, and Stiles hugs her back tightly, amazed at how much he’s missed her. “I’m sorry,” she says, the words muffled. “You don’t have to say another word.” 

“Thanks.” Stiles breaks away, avoiding her gaze. It's still hard, thinking about Erica. He can't help but think that she would be helping him, if she were still here. Maybe that's giving her too much credit, but he figures the least he can do is remember her a little kinder than she was. 

“Let’s get back to your happiness.” Kira grabs his hand and squeezes, changing the subject easily. “So tell me how I fit into your plan. This is great drama for my very first day back.” 

# 

Derek likes Kira Yukimura, he really does, but he absolutely hates Stiles’s plan. 

Truthfully he wishes he could just tell Stiles not to worry about it anymore. He doesn’t need to make friends; he’ll be out of here in a few months anyway. He just doesn’t want his relationship with Stiles to go public, because the students of Beacon Hills are determined to take away everything that makes Derek happy, and he knows in his bones that they’ll try to take away _this_ , too. 

But Stiles is so enthusiastic about his big idea, so certain it’s going to make Derek the most popular guy around, and Derek can only watch Stiles’s hands move in graceless, beautiful arches as he explains everything. 

They’re meeting at Derek’s house on the Sunday before Kira starts class at Beacon Hills High. Apparently Kira is going to fake a new-kid crisis tomorrow morning, despite the fact that she spent an entire year at the school before and probably knows her way around just as well as anyone. Derek is going to step in and “save” her, then offer to be her guide for the rest of the day. Kira is basically coming in with a free pass to popularity; she’s gorgeous and exotic and friends with Stiles, which is more than enough. When everyone sees her befriending Derek, they’ll automatically start looking at him differently. 

At lunch Kira is going to talk about the nice boy who helped her in her hour of need. “I’ll be in the practice rooms with you so they don’t think I put her up to it,” Stiles tells Derek, nudging his shoulder. 

“Foolproof,” Derek deadpans. 

“Then on Friday you’ll say Kira invited you to Lydia’s party. Jackson won’t be there, everyone will be on the nice side of drunk and ready to get to know you, and voila!” Stiles claps his hands together. “It’s the perfect plan.” 

“Perfect,” Kira agrees tolerantly, an amused smile playing on her lips. 

Derek has to ask. “What are _you_ getting out of this?” 

“You make Stiles happy,” Kira says simply. “He got me through when I was like you. Friendless, lonely, scared, sad…” 

“Okay, okay,” Derek mumbles. “I get it.” 

Kira grins at him. “I’ll leave you two alone,” she says, standing. “I want to bike home before dark.” 

“After I fix Derek’s problem I promise to help you get your driver’s license,” Stiles tells her. 

When Kira leaves Derek looks down at Stiles. “This seems too simple to work,” he admits. 

“Derek, simplicity is the mother of success.” 

“That’s not even close to a real saying.” 

“Sure it is. Look it up.” Stiles slides onto Derek’s lap. “Or you could just _get_ it up,” he hums, brushing his lips tantalizingly over Derek’s. 

Derek tries to groan at the pun, but it comes out far lustier than he intended. “You’re lucky you’re cute,” he manages before finally kissing his— boyfriend? Secret lover? Friend with benefits?—on the lips. Stiles is an eager kisser, and he pries into Derek’s mouth with his tongue, sucking so hard Derek’s lips feel bruised. His ass is rubbing against the crotch of Derek’s jeans, and _fuck_ does it feel good. 

Like this, with warmth pooling in his belly and his mind clear of everything except thoughts of Stiles, Derek can almost feel hopeful. It’s a good way to feel. He’s missed it. 

Let Stiles have his plan. If it works, great. If not…well. They can still have this, until Stiles gets bored with him; bored of being the school loner’s lonely secret. Derek doesn’t know if that’s a matter of _when_ or _if_ , but right now he orders himself not to care. 

# 

It actually starts out just the way it’s supposed to. Kira drops her books all over the hallway, in front of about thirty students, and Derek springs forward. “Let me help you with those,” he says robotically, just like he practiced with Stiles. 

“Oh, thank you,” Kira huffs, all but laying the back of her hand against her forehead dramatically; he swears she’s playing up her accent to really sell it. “It’s my first day and I don’t know where my class is.” 

He flicks a cursory glance over her schedule; he already has it memorized. “You’re in Aquatic Sciences with Irwell? I can take you there. And we have second period together, so I’ll meet you at the door and take you over.” He can almost hear Stiles smacking himself in the face at how rehearsed this sounds, but, well. Derek is a musician, not an actor. 

“Thank you so much! What a gentleman!” Kia gives him a meant-to-look-spontaneous hug. “You look just like an American movie star!” she adds, which Derek swears he forced Stiles to cut, because _come on_. 

“Let’s get you to class,” he grits out. 

He isn’t sure if he just imagines people whispering behind them or if it’s really happening. 

# 

Kira keeps it up. When he goes to collect her from first period, she waves to him from across the hall and screeches, “Derek!” so loudly the girl next to her jumps about a foot into the air. They link arms to go to class together, where Kira makes a point of taking the seat next to him. They keep it up for the next three periods. Kira asks several girls if Derek is single and sighs about how handsome he is, even when Derek is in the room, able to overhear. By fifth period, the girls just giggle along and agree with her. “I think he’s gay,” one girl says, and they all groan in disappointment. 

It’s kind of weird. At the same time…it’s…really, really nice. 

At lunch Derek deposits Kira at the cafeteria and turns to book it to the practice room when two senior boys block his path. Derek orders himself not to be afraid. He’s not the same kid guys like this used to beat up. He’s ten times stronger than them; if they try to touch him, they’ll regret it. 

But the biggest one only asks, “Hey, you’ve been showing that Kira girl around, right?” 

Derek nods slowly. 

“What’s she into?” 

“What?” 

“She’s hot,” the guy says simply. “What kind of stuff was she saying? Does she need any more help finding her classes?” 

“Where’s she sitting at lunch?” the other guy chimes in. 

Derek can’t believe it. “Uh…I think she’s sitting with Stiles and her old friends from sophomore year. She didn’t tell me too much about herself, but if she does…I’ll come find you guys, okay?” 

The first boy nods. “Yeah, Hale,” he says. His smile doesn’t even seem mocking. “You do that.” 

# 

“I’m a genius,” Stiles says. 

“It was only two guys.” 

“The first two dominoes to fall!” Stiles is perched on Derek’s lap again; it’s become his favorite seat. “You made friends,” he sing-songs. 

“They asked me if I could help them get into Kira’s pants, that’s hardly— ” 

“You made friends!” Stiles sings again, louder this time. “I feel like a proud mommy on the first day of kindergarten.” 

Derek snorts and shifts, so all of Stiles’s weight isn’t solely centered on Derek’s dick. “Don’t make this weird.” 

“My baby’s gonna be _popular_!” Stiles phone buzzes and he grabs it out. “Kira update.” He reads the text message, then looks at Derek, brow furrowed. “Okay, seriously, dude. What the hell did you ever do to Jackson Whittemore?” 

“Huh?” 

“Kira was talking you up at lunch, and Jackson told her to either shut up or move tables.” 

“What?” Derek’s cheeks flame. Jackson can’t talk to Kira like that. Kira’s a good person. She’s Derek’s _friend_ , damn it. “Nobody stuck up for her?” 

“They’re all too scared of Jackson.” 

“Well, fuck them. Seriously.” Derek scowls. “Tel Kira not to bother. I don’t want to be friends with those assholes.” 

“You know what?” Stiles’s thumbs fly over the keys. “Sometimes I don’t either.” He sticks his phone back in his pocket. “I told her to join us here if she wants. Is that okay?” 

“Yeah, that’s fine.” 

“The thing about Jackson is that, like, ninety percent of the time he’s the best friend you could ask for, and the other ten percent he’s a tyrant.” Stiles sighs. “I remember junior year, when I had mono? He brought me wedding soup every Monday and Wednesday for three weeks. He didn’t miss a single one. And he would play Call of Duty with me for hours.” 

“What a dreamboat,” Derek says flatly. 

“He’s getting worse. I don’t know. I miss nice-Jackson.” 

“Well, I never knew nice Jackson, so you won’t see me crying.” Derek bumps Stiles off his lap. “I gotta practice.” 

“You’re still going to come to the party Friday, right?” 

Derek starts warming up with arpeggios. “If it’s important to you,” he says. Frankly he’s planning on making an appearance for Stiles’s sake, then sneaking away and spending the rest of the night getting to third base with Stiles back home. 

“Trust me,” Stiles promises confidently. “You’re going to have a great time.” 

# 

**Friday**

The party is fifteen minutes in, and Stiles is _not_ having a great time. 

He told Derek to come an hour after the party starts, to make a grand entrance, but he feels weirdly lonely as he navigates the crowd with Derek. Kira’s already broken away from him and is talking to Scott over in the corner. Stiles can’t help but eye them a little suspiciously. He knows Scott and Ally have been on the rocks lately, and Kira’s had a crush on Scott since her first week here sophomore year. 

He doesn’t need any extra drama right now. 

Even though he wanted to stay completely clearheaded, he ends up wandering over to the cooler and pulling out a beer. “Great party,” he calls to Lydia over the music. 

“You look miserable,” she shouts. 

He forces a grin. 

“Much better.” 

He finishes the beer in about two minutes and pulls the top off another just so his hands are busy. Twenty minutes before Derek’s supposed to get here. Fifteen. Ten. The beer is fucking disgusting, so he pours himself a vodka and coke in a red solo cup. 

Someone grabs his shoulder and shakes him. “Hey, asshole!” 

Stiles’s drink sloshes on the floor and he scowls as he turns to face whoever grabbed him. “What the fuck?” he starts, before he sees who it is. His mouth drops open. “ _Jackson_?” 

Jackson is grinning, pink-cheeked and slit-eyed, obviously drunk off his ass and probably half-high to boot. “I snuck out!” he shouts. 

“No shit.” Stiles just stares. 

Jackson grabs his drink and takes a large swig. He belches, looking extraordinarily pleased with himself. “Not enough vodka, man. You want a drink? I’ll make you my specialty.” 

“I’m good.” Stiles digs in his pocket for his phone. He has to text Derek and tell him that the plan’s off. Everything hinged on Jackson being gone. He has to squint down to make out the numbers. Fuck, he’s tipsy. 

“Come on, man!” Jackson grabs his hand. Jackson’s a needy, touchy-feely drunk, and Stiles can’t stand it. “Everyone’s dancing. Come with me.” 

“In a minute.” He painstakingly types out a message to Derek: _Jackson here. Plan is off. Meet you @ your house in fifteen. Sorry._ He glances up just before he sends it and groans. 

Too late. 

Derek is standing in the entranceway, hands jammed awkwardly in his pants pockets. Stiles doesn’t think anyone’s noticed him yet, and he starts fighting his way to the door. He can still hustle Derek out before there’s any trouble. He shoves two drunk girls out of his way. “Der!” he calls, but Derek can’t hear him over the music. 

Then, suddenly, the music cuts out. There’s a loud and obnoxious groan from the partygoers and Stiles grimaces. He’s almost there. Derek hasn’t seen him yet, and Stiles waves to try and get his attention. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Jackson calls above the din. Everyone quiets down when they realize who’s speaking and Stiles turns, heartsick. “We have to pause the party really quick.” 

Derek recognizes the voice at the same time he sees Stiles. He shoots Stiles a horrified, betrayed look before he starts backing towards the door. 

“We have a little party-crasher here,” Jackson says. He slips past Stiles; the crowd parts for him immediately. “What do you think you’re doing here, Hale?” 

Derek just stares at him, either too scared to respond or too brave to engage. 

“Didn’t you read the fine print on the invitations?” Jackson’s voice drops, but the room is so quiet that everyone can hear. “ _No fags allowed_.” 

Stiles finally pushes past the people in his way. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Jackson?” 

There’s a unanimous intake of breath across the room. Jackson turns to stare at Stiles through hooded eyes. “Nothing’s wrong with me,” he says. “I’m not a fucking freak.” He turns back to Derek and pokes him in the chest. “I’m not like you, Hale.” 

Derek grabs Jackson’s hand. “Don’t touch me,” he says quietly. 

It’s the first time Stiles, or anyone in the room, has ever seen Derek defend himself. Jackson’s eyes widen, and then he smiles in a sort of manic delight. “Why? Did it give you a boner? You hot for me, Hale? What the kind of sick fuck are you, anyway?” 

“Jackson, shut up! Leave him alone!” Stiles tries to stand next to Derek, but Derek keeps backing away. 

“I’m leaving,” he says. 

“No, you’re not.” Stiles turns to face Jackson. “He’s staying, okay?” 

‘Stiles, shut up. I’m going home.” 

“No, you’re not!” Stiles glares at him. “He has a right to be here,” he says to Jackson. 

“Yeah, and I have a right to kicky his faggy ass until he learns to stay away from where he isn’t wanted!” Jackson steps forward and Stiles moves in front of Derek protectively. Jackson laughs. “What the fuck, Stiles?” 

“Stiles, move,” Derek says. “I don’t need your help.” 

“Yeah, Stiles, move.” Jackson cracks his knuckles. “Faggot wants a fight, faggot gets a fight.” 

Derek almost growls. “Stop calling me that.” 

“Or what?” Jackson sways on his feet, a light of early triumph in his eyes. His voice comes out in a croon, like poisonous syrup. “You’ll wait until I’m asleep, lock me in my house, and set it on fire?” 

Derek goes completely still behind Stiles. The room is entirely silent, everyone shocked out of breath. 

“Jackson,” Stiles says. 

“God, Stiles, what?” 

Stiles punches him in the face. 

Someone— maybe Lydia— screams as Jackson charges at Stiles. He takes Stiles down so hard Stiles’s head bangs against the floor. Jackson hits him in the chest and raises his fist again, looking ready to break Stiles’s nose, when Derek grabs him from behind and lifts him into the air. Jackson manages to elbow Derek in the eye and Derek lets him go, stunned from the blow. Jackson gets a glancing blow off Derek’s jaw and, when Derek’s head snaps up, he brings his knee into Derek’s groin. 

Derek looks like he might be sick, but he manages to stop Jackson’s next attack and grab him around the waist. Jackson screeches and tries to get free, but Derek has his arms pinned. He throws Jackson to the ground and kicks him in the ribs for good measure. “Stay down!” he shouts at him, and Stiles shudders. He can’t count how many times those two words have been yelled at Derek over the years. 

Derek bends over Stiles as a group of students rush over to Jackson. “Are you okay?” he rasps out. His eye is bloodshot and watering, and his face is still twisted with pain, but he helps Stiles to his feet. 

“I’m okay.” Stiles touches the back of his head and winces. It’s tender and he wonders if he has a concussion. “God, I’m sorry. I didn’t know he would be here.” 

“It’s always going to be this way,” Derek says. “This was stupid. This was so fucking stupid. I never should have come. God, he could have fucked up my hands.” He’s shaking. “I don’t belong here. I have to get out.” 

“You belong here,” Stiles insists. “You belong with me.” 

Derek shakes his head. He’s backing away again, looking for the exit. “This is your world,” he says. “I don’t want to be in it.” 

Stiles can’t think of what to do. He only knows that it isn’t fair. None of this is fair, everything sucks and everything hurts. He’s drunk and in pain and maybe just a little bit in love with Derek Hale, and he doesn’t want Derek to leave. 

So he does the only thing that pops into his mind. He grabs Derek around the waist, pulls him in, and kisses him right on the mouth. 

Someone screams again, but Derek’s lips are soft as he kisses Stiles back, and Stiles can feel that he’s stopped shaking. Stiles counts in his mind— _three, two, one_ and then he pulls away, grabs Derek’s hand, and runs. He wanted to time it just right, so they could be out and free by the time the shock wore off, because he really doesn’t know how Jackson is going to react, and neither of them are up for Round Two. 

As the door slams behind them, he hears Jackson roar his name, but he doesn’t look back. 

# 

They run together all the way to where Stiles has his car parked, several home down. Stiles has to bend over to catch his breath. His head is throbbing like a sonofabitch. 

“That was so stupid,” Derek gasps. “That was such a stupid fucking thing you just did.” 

Stiles closes his eyes and breathes in and out. “I did it for you.” 

“Well, I didn’t ask you to do it! I told you I wanted it to be a secret!” 

“I’m sorry!” Stiles straightens up. “I don’t want it to be a secret, okay? I want to be with you.” 

“You _were_ with me. All I asked was that you let that be enough.” Derek slumps down and draws his knees up to his chest. “They’re going to say I turned you gay or something,” he says woodenly. 

“Well, that’s just stupid.” Stiles sinks down next to him. 

“Jackson must be feeling so vindicated. He always said I was a queer, and now everyone knows that it’s true. They’re going to make my life hell.” 

“I won’t let them.” Stiles reaches for Derek’s hand. “Let’s go to your place,” he suggests. “I want to take a look at where he hit you.” 

Derek slaps his hand away and shakes his head. “You just kissed me, without my permission, in front of everyone,” he says coldly. “I don’t want to see you again.” 

Stiles stares at him. “Are you serious?” 

“Completely.” 

“Derek, I did that for you!” 

“I didn’t ask for your help!” Derek shouts. “I didn’t ask you to try and make friends for me. I didn’t ask you to be my boyfriend. And I didn’t ask you to come invade my practice space so I could be your quarter-life crisis! So will you please just _stop helping me_?” He turns and starts walking away. 

Stiles remains where he is, stunned. “Well then, fuck you, Derek!” he calls after Derek’s back. When Derek’s disappeared into the night he leans his forehead against the top of his jeep. “Fuck you,” he repeats softly. 

“Stiles! _Stiles!_ ” 

Stiles swallows hard and turns. He should have known Jackson would come after him. 

Jackson looks awful when he finally reaches Stiles. He’s running a little lopsided, blood crusted around his nose and his eye already starting to purple. Stiles expected him to be furious, but he just looks stunned and devastated. “What the fuck?” he gasps. “What was that?” 

Stiles forces himself to face Jackson with a steely gaze. “I’m with Hale,” he says steadily. 

“You two are…you’re _fucking_?” 

“We’re together,” Stiles says. “Any more than that is none of your business.” 

Jackson’s lip trembles. “You’re like him?” 

“Yeah, Jackson.” Stiles sighs. “You want to call me a fag? Punch me in the face? Go ahead. Might as well get it in now— ” 

Jackson kisses him. 

It’s so fast and unexpected that Stiles just freezes. Jackson takes like blood and something spicy. He groans, just a little, like it hurts, and when he pulls away the lip that Stiles split in his punch has started to bleed again. 

“What did you do,” Stiles says dumbly, raising a hand up to his lips. 

“Don’t tell,” Jackson says. 

Stiles shakes his head slowly. “I don’t understand.” 

“Stiles, just listen to me.” Jackson steps forward and Stiles leaps back, afraid Jackson will try to kiss him again. “I’m not gay,” Jackson pleads. 

“You kissed me.” 

“It’s not my fault.” Jackson shudders. He’s swaying again. “It’s people like him…fucking people like _him_ …” 

“How long?” Stiles whispers. 

“Never— I don’t— ” 

“How long have you wanted to do that, Jackson?” 

Jackson raises his head. His eyes are haunted. “Forever,” he breathes. 

And suddenly Stiles begins to understand why Jackson hates Derek so much. 

“He’s always wanted you,” Jackson insists. “But I kept you safe. I protected you. Because you…you’re _mine_ , Stiles. You get that, right?” He’s rambling. He’s practically twitching, and it’s terrifying. 

Stiles shakes his head. “Jackson, no.” 

“You’ve always been…I know we can’t, like I sometimes want to, but you’re my Stiles.” He’s mumbling now, totally gone. 

“Jackson, go back to the party. Get Lydia to put you into her bed. Sleep it off.” 

“I don’t want Lydia.” 

“She’s going to help you.” 

“I never wanted Lydia.” His hand shoots out and grabs Stiles’s. “You can’t be with Hale,” he insists. “He’s a…he’s a fucking _nothing_. I’m your best friend. I’m always going to look after you, ‘cause you’re…you’re _mine._ ” 

“Fuck, Jackson. Oh, fuck.” Stiles looks around. “What the fuck am I doing here?” he says out loud. 

“Stiles, we can say it was a mistake,” Jackson pleads. “Hale made you do it, right? Or you were messing with me. It can be the same way it was.” 

“No.” Stiles clutches his head. What the fuck is he still doing here? “I don’t want things to be the way they were. I want Derek.” He grabs his keys and opens his car door, but no, fuck, he’s not really in a good place to drive, half-drunk and concussed as he is. He stuffs his keys in his pocket and starts jogging away. 

“Where are you going?” Jackson shouts after him. 

Stiles doesn’t look back. “To Derek,” he says into the night.


	4. Fifth Chord

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here be dat sex. Sorry this is so short, but RL has been v. hectic and I wanted to get something up for you. Since this is only from Derek's POV, just a quick note that the Jackson thing hasn't been forgotten, Stiles just doesn't think it's his place to tell Derek. Next chapter will be pretty Jackson-centric though. Enjoy!

Derek can’t sleep, can’t east, can’t play. He stomps around the dark house, trying to calm himself down, but every moment of the party keeps running through his head with perfect clarity. 

Jackson’s words echo over and over: _Or what? You’ll wait until I’m asleep, lock me in my house, and set it on fire?_

Derek is not his father. He _isn’t_. 

But, God, sometimes he wishes that he was. He wishes he could just turn off the part of himself that feels and hurts and cares past reason. Sometimes he even thinks it might be so easy. 

That’s why he turned to the piano after his family died. He needed to hear his own humanity, neatly laid out in a progression of musical chords. 

Derek sits down at the bench of his piano and runs his hands over the lid. 

This is the only thing that matters. This is the only way out of Beacon Hills. That’s been his mantra for years. 

Tonight he almost forgot it. He almost ruined everything— and at the thought he carefully flexes his fingers one more time, to make sure he didn’t injure his hands in the fight. Getting provoked into a fight like that is the absolute worst thing that could happen to Derek, and as soon as it started he should have ducked his head and left. 

Instead he stayed, to protect Stiles. He’d clenched his hand into a fist without a second thought for his Julliard audition, and he’d made contact with a painful, sickening crack. 

He could have ruined everything. 

But that’s not the scariest part. The scariest part was that when Stiles kissed him, keeping him there, exposing him to everyone, Derek hadn’t minded. 

Instead he thought— _this makes it worth it._

He would have fought Jackson again, if he’d gotten back up. He would have done it all again, and pounded anyone who came at them into the ground until his hands were ruined, if it meant he could keep kissing Stiles. 

Stiles is not an escape from Beacon Hills, the way the piano is. Stiles is somewhere to hide. A wonderful place, but not a place he can stay. 

Derek’s can’t choose Stiles over the piano. He just _can’t_. 

He’s halfway convinced himself when someone starts pounding at the door. 

Derek bolts for it, afraid that Aunt Mabel will wake up and start calling for her Charles again. He’s already tensing as the door swings open, well aware of who will be on the other side. 

Stiles gazes up at him as he braces himself against the doorway, panting. His eyes are wide and honey-brown, forehead dappled with sweat. 

God, Derek wants him. Every time his head tries to talk him out of this, his heart puts up a roadblock. 

“I told you I didn’t want to see you again,” Derek says. 

Stiles holds up a hand. “Der,” he gasps. “Before you…say anything…” he sucks in deep breaths, half-gagging. “Just let me…oh fuck. I need water. Can I…do you have any water?” 

Derek rolls his eyes, but he steps aside so Stiles can enter and leads him to the kitchen. 

“I had a whole speech planned,” Stiles explains as Derek fills a glass. “But I ran all the way here, and I had to sweat out the beer…thanks.” He downs the glass in two gulps. 

“I don’t want your speech,” Derek tells him. “You need to go home.” 

“Just let me say something first.” Stiles traces the rim of the glass with his finger, but he looks up to meet Derek’s eyes before he starts. “I’m sorry,” he says clearly. “You’re right. It really, really sucked for me to out us like that. It should have been our decision, and I made it for us instead, and that was wrong. I’m really, really sorry, and I know I fucked up.” 

Derek inclines his head in acknowledgement. 

“But here’s the thing, Der. It was the wrong thing to do, but I only did it because I wanted to help you. Over the past five years, I’ve fucked up a lot, and they were all selfish fuckups. I ignored you and let Jackson hurt you, and I did all that for me. Because I was _only_ thinking about me.” Stiles reaches for one of Derek’s hands, and Derek lets him take it. “I can’t promise that I’ll never fuck up again,” Stiles tells him. “But I _can_ promise that if I do, it’ll be because I was thinking about you, and putting you first. I won’t always do right. But my intentions always will be.” 

Derek looks down at their entwined hands and swallows. “I don’t think you understand how hard it’s going to be for you,” he says. “You could be a pariah by now. Stiles, you’re used to being popular. Being hated is _work_ , okay? And— ” 

Stiles digs out his phone and opens it. “Look at this,” he says, thumbing through the messages. “Kira. Scott. Ally. Here’s Isaac. I don’t know this number, actually. All supportive.” 

Derek stares open-mouthed at the messages whirling by. They’re going too fast to read every word, but the general sense is approving, even gleeful. Many are definitely fishing for gossip. He doesn’t see a single one from Jackson. “Is this for real?” 

“Scott and Kira have each sent me, like, a hundred texts since I left the party. Scott wants the three of us to play Call of Duty this weekend. Even Lydia— _you’ve got balls, Stilinski._ ” He shuts the phone. “ _We_ are not going to be hated,” he says, enunciating the first word meaningfully. “They saw that I punched out Jackson Whittemore for you. And then you took Jackson _down_. That’s like…that’s like a beta wolf taking out the alpha wolf. We showed them that we have nothing to be ashamed of.” 

Derek puts his head in his hands. 

“Unless you don’t want me,” Stiles adds quietly. “If you really want me to leave, I’ll leave.” 

“I don’t want you to leave,” Derek admits, the words muffled by his hands. 

Stiles exhales. “Good.” 

The clock on the stove switches over to midnight, and in the stillness of the late hour Derek feels the pull towards honesty. “You make me happier than anything else in a long time,” he admits. 

“I feel the same way.” 

“I don’t want to lose you. It would fucking kill me to lose you.” 

“I know. That’s exactly how I feel. Derek, that’s _good_. We feel the same way about each other. That’s fucking incredible.” 

“I just…” Derek groans and shakes his head. “I just keep wondering when the other shoe’s going to drop here. I feel like I’m this little pet you’ve been leading along on a leash. You kiss me, you tell me where to go, you tell me what to do, God, even what to _say_ , with Kira. When I’m with you…I just feel like I’ve lost all control. That’s not me. I’m not sure what to do.” 

Stiles is quiet for a moment and then he approaches Derek slowly. “Well,” he suggests, “you could kiss me. But only if you wanted to.” 

Derek peers at him. Stiles’s face is dead serious, and he holds completely still, as if he won’t move again until Derek has given him permission. 

Derek sighs and leans over to kiss him. Stiles doesn’t turn it into something deep and hungry, like he usually does. He lets Derek lead. By the time Derek’s satisfied, his arms are shaking just a bit. 

“And now?” Derek whispers. 

Stiles swallows. “Now…if you wanted to…you could take my hand and lead me into your bedroom.” 

Derek’s head snaps up. 

“But only if you wanted to,” Stiles says again. 

Of course he wants to. 

God. 

How could he even think of letting this go? How could he possibly tell himself the piano had to be more important than Stiles? Yes, music is his way out of Beacon Hills. The piano is sanctuary, passion, life… but now Derek knows what it’s like to have an audience who stays not just for the music, but for the person playing it. 

And that’s just as good as hearing the music coming from his own hands. It might even be better. 

He takes Stiles’s hand and leads him past the parlor, past his aunt’s room. He forgets until he’s already opened his door that he framed a picture of him and Stiles just yesterday and put it on his dresser. So fucking sappy. But Stiles only grins when he sees it and says, “I like that one.” 

Derek wants to throw Stiles down on the bed and do every filthy thing he’s only imagined before, but he instead crosses his arms and asks, “Now what?” 

“You could tell me to take off my shirt,” Stiles says. “Or my pants. Or you could tell me to take off _your_ shirt, or your pants.” 

“Or I could tell you to hold still while I take off your clothes,” Derek says, starting to get into it. 

Stiles flushes. “Or that.” 

Derek nods and says, “Take off your pants.” 

Stiles struggles with his jeans while Derek walks behind him. He waits until the jeans are puddled on the floor before he says, “Hold still,” and wrestles off Stiles’s T-shirt. He takes a moment to trace the moles on Stiles’s back. “Aren’t you pretty,” he teases. 

Stiles moans a little and tilts back his head, silently asking for kisses, but Derek has been placed in charge now, and he only rubs his nose against Stiles’s neck before he steps away. “Now what?” he asks, voice somewhere between a purr and a growl. 

Stiles’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Now,” he says, “you could make love to me. Or fuck me. Or whatever’s in the middle. Only if you wanted to, like I want to. But if you do…you’d have to promise me that you’re all in, because I can’t give any more of my heart to you without knowing you’ll keep it safe.” 

“I will. I promise.” Derek bends and kisses Stiles again. This time he makes it the bruising kind Stiles prefers. He wonders if he’s in love with this boy. 

Stiles is a little glassy-eyed when he pulls away. “Have you ever…?” 

“Once.” Derek reaches inside Stiles’s briefs to wrap his hand around Stiles’s cock. Stiles buckes in his hand and Derek smiles, slowly jerking Stiles off while he speaks. “This summer. I met him at a gay bar, and it was just for fun, and I’m pretty sure he gave me a fake name. We used a condom, and I got tested to make sure I was safe. I am. You?” 

“No. Never.” Stiles bites his lips and thrusts his hips into Derek’s hand as Derek reaches the end of his cock and starts again from the top. “Were you top or bottom?” 

“Bottom. He was older. It felt right.” 

“Is that how you want it?” 

“I don’t care. I’d be happy either way.” 

Stiles whimpers, and Derek can feel his hand getting slick. “I’m not going to be able to last riding you if you keep doing that.” 

“Then I’ll ride you tonight.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yeah. Tomorrow we’ll switch, or we’ll keep it this way. It’s however we want it.” 

“Yeah,” Stiles says, a grin sliding over his face as if he’s just now realizing what’s happening. “God, yeah.” 

Derek releases him. “On the bed,” he says, and Stiles scrambles to comply. Derek opens his dresser drawer for a tub of Vaseline. He used to keep it in the bathroom, but, well, he’s been jacking off more recently lately, so it made more sense to move it. “I’ll get us something better tomorrow,” he promises Stiles. 

Stiles just whimpers and bucks his hips, begging Derek to get a move on. “I have a condom in my wallet,” he says when Derek tosses him the Vaseline. 

“I’ve got it.” Derek pulls out his emergency pack. He’d bought them this summer, when he’d finally gotten up the courage to start trolling gay bars. “Ribbed for your pleasure,” he teases as he snaps it on. 

Stiles snorts. He’s trying his best to lube up with the Vaseline, and Derek leans over him to help. Stiles tosses back his head and moans as Derek’s fingers dance over his hole, and Derek has to bite back a grin at the thought of Aunt Mabel waking up and coming to hear what’s going on. “First finger,” he says, and slides in. 

“Fuck, Derek. Fuck, more, please.” 

“Second,” Derek says, and adds his middle finger. God, Stiles is so tight, Derek wonders if he’s ever even fingered himself open before. “You have to tell me if it hurts,” he says, suddenly stern. 

“Yeah, yeah.” 

“I mean it, baby.” It’s the first time they’ve used anything other than each other’s names, and Stiles shivers delightedly. “If it hurts, I’ll stop and fix it. I want this to be good for you.” 

“Okay, I’ll tell you. Can you just please get to it?” 

So Derek does. That first thrust inside is torturously slow, and Derek listens to the way Stiles groans, waiting to hear pain. If he’s feeling any it clearly isn’t affecting him, because he enthusiastically meets Derek’s thrust halfway. 

“Oh, fuck,” Derek says, and laughs despite himself. “You’re a little power bottom, aren’t you, baby?” 

“Again,” Stiles begs. 

Derek anchors his arm around Stiles’s waists and gives him another thrust. It’s easier the second time, and the third is easier still. He angles himself, looking for the sweet spot, and hits Stiles’s prostate on his fourth try. Stiles is a mess, one hand over Derek’s, jerking himself off with both sets of fingers. 

“I’m coming,” Derek says, feeling his balls draw up with pleasure. 

“Inside me,” Stiles says, either a question or a request, but Derek couldn’t stop if he wanted to. He comes with a grunt, feeling Stiles spill over his fingers half a second later. 

Stiles rolls into his arms as he reaches for the tissue box on his bedside. “How was that for control?” he mumbles with a cocky, sex-drunk grin. 

Derek pinches his ass. “Not half-bad,” he whispers into Stiles’s ear. 

Stiles snuggles up against him. “Can I sleep here tonight?” 

“Yeah. Of course.” 

“Can I sleep here every night?” 

Derek kisses him, the most enthusiastic way he knows how to say yes. 

“Der?” Stiles’s voice is sleepy, and Derek has to yawn before he replies. 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m falling in love with you.” 

Derek grins like an idiot. 

“Is that okay?” 

“More than okay.” Derek tucks his face into the crook of Stiles’s neck. “Meet you at the bottom,” he whispers, and he doesn’t know if Stiles replies or not before he’s fast asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive me, readers, for I have SLACKED. It has been almost two weeks since my last update. As penance, please accept some long-overdue answers about what happened to Erica, and a teensy weensey bit of smut.

Stiles wakes in the gray light of early morning. He’s smushed up in bed against Derek, torso half- dangling over the edge and ass wonderfully sore. He shifts so he doesn’t fall of the edge and bumps against Derek’s morning erection. 

Well, _hello_. 

He cups the lump in Derek’s boxers and rubs his thumb over the head gently. 

“Mmph, hey.” Derek’s eyes are still closed, but Stiles can hear the beginnings of a smile in his voice. “You’re gonna have to stop doing that _real_ quick.” 

“Yeah? Or what?” Stiles rubs a little faster. With his free hand he reaches over the side of the bed for the tub of Vaseline. 

Derek grabs his hand. “Or I’m going to come, like, _right now._ ” 

“All talk, no action,” Stiles teases. “C’mon, Der.” He frees his hand, grabs a glob of the Vaseline, and sneaks it through the leghole of Derek’s boxers. “You’re not the only one with talented hands here.” 

Derek moans as Stiles strokes him. “Harder,” he gasps, pumping up his hips into Stiles’s hand. “I want— ” 

Stiles twists his wrist, just a little, and Derek comes so hard it shoots up Stiles’s arm. Stiles lets out a happy little sigh of satisfaction and wipes his hand on Derek’s boxers. Derek reaches for him and tugs him down. 

“You got me all dirty,” he whispers in Stiles’s ear. “You little slut.” 

Fuck, that goes straight to Stiles’s own dick, but he knows he has to get out of here so he can sneak through his front door before his dad gets up. “I have to get home or my dad will lose it,” he says apologetically. 

Derek smiles at him so Stiles knows he isn’t upset. “Okay.” 

“Can I come back over this weekend?” 

“Of course.” 

Stiles kisses him, sucks a little at his lower lip. “Can I fuck _you_ next time?” 

“Oh, you know, maybe if you ask nicely.” 

Stiles snorts and squirms out of the bed. He bends over to pick up his jeans from the floor, giving Derek a perfect view of his ass. 

“Oh, fuck,” Derek says. “You’re going to be the death of me, aren’t you?” 

# 

Stiles manages to get home and in bed before his dad gets up for his shift. He’s just hungover enough that he’s able to sleep for another few hours and doesn’t wake up until it’s nearly noon. 

Jackson is sitting on his bed, staring at him, and Stiles swears in surprise. 

“Sorry,” Jackson says. “Door was open.” 

“How long have you been there?” Stiles sits up, scowling. They’ve always been comfortable walking in and out of each other’s houses, but after last night, this feels…weird. Like a violation. 

“Couple minutes.” Jackson looks down at the ground and scuffs his foot against the carpet. “Hale’s not here, is he?” 

“No. But we’re together now.” Stiles doesn’t elaborate, but Jackson’s cheeks still tint pink. 

“I’m sorry about last night.” 

“What part?” 

Jackson shrugs. “All of it.” 

Stiles sits up, tugging the covers over his knees. He’s never seen Jackson so subdued, and it tugs on his heartstrings, urging him to feel pity. “What you said to Derek really sucked,” he says, trying to bat the feeling away. “About his dad? That was fucked up.” 

“I know.” 

“I can’t be around you if you keep that shit up.” 

Jackson’s gaze snaps to him. “You’re my best friend,” he says, almost plaintively. “I know I’m not yours, Scott has that locked up, but I need you in my life.” 

The kiss hangs between them. Stiles sighs and decides he might as well be the one to address it. “I think I’m more than a best friend to you, Jackson.” 

Jackson stares at him, pleading. 

“I’m not going to tell anyone— I didn’t tell Derek, if you were worried about that. But, you know, it’s kind of hard for me to just forget it.” Stiles can’t make eye contact with his friend. He doesn’t know how to reconcile the Jackson he knows with the Jackson he saw last night. 

“I’m in love with you,” Jackson confesses. “I have been for as long as I can remember. But I thought…I didn’t know you were, you know…like that.” 

“Gay,” Stiles clarifies. 

“Yeah.” Jackson’s eyes plead with him. “If I’d known, and I asked you out years ago…would you have been with me?” 

Stiles swallows hard, taken aback by the question. He’s never thought about Jackson romantically, not even a little. But if Jackson had asked him out…had driven him to the movies and cuddled with Stiles on the couch and dipped his hands inside Stiles’s pants… 

He would be Jackson’s boyfriend right now. He knows he could have loved Jackson, if things had just been a little bit different. 

“I don’t know,” is all he says. “It doesn’t matter.” 

Because he’s with Derek now, and he doesn’t want Jackson. 

Jackson takes a deep breath. He sits back a little bit on the bed, acting like he just wants to reposition himself, but Stiles draws his legs up to his chest anyway. “If I called it off with Lydia…” 

“Jackson, no. I chose Derek, okay?” 

“I’d make you a deal,” Jackson offers. 

Stiles scowls, picking at a loose thread on the sheet. He can feel a small headache beginning behind his eyes, a weak minor hangover he’d hoped he would have avoided. “What are you talking about?” 

“If you end things with Hale, I’ll lay off of him. I mean, that’s what he really wants, right? To be left alone? I could make that happen. Or, you know, things could keep going as they are.” 

Stiles stares at his friend, so disgusted he barely knows how to formulate a reply. “Bye, Jackson,” he says, pointing to the door. 

Jackson deflates. “No, come on. Don’t make me leave. I was just— ” 

“You were fucking threatening my boyfriend. So, what? If we keep dating, you’ll make his life hell? You’ll have to go through me first, Jackson, because I’m not scared of you.” Stiles throws a pillow at Jackson, letting his temper get the better of him. “Can you please get the fuck out of my house?” 

Jackson puts his head in his hands, and Stiles realizes in horror that he’s starting to cry. “Jackson…” Stiles sighs. A spiteful part of him is shouting that Jackson is being purposefully manipulative, but he ignores it. Jackson _never_ cries. He climbs over the bed awkwardly and puts a hand on Jackson’s back. 

Jackson curls into his touch, resting his head on Stiles’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he confesses, voice shaking. “I’m just so fucked up over this. I can’t think straight.” 

“You can’t threaten Derek,” Stiles says firmly. 

“I know. Fuck. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.” 

“I just want things to be normal, Jackson. I want everything to be okay. I want you to be my friend, and to stop being such a dick all the time.” Stiles sighs and withdraws his hand. “God, it just feels like everything’s been different since Erica.” 

Jackson goes stiff at the mention of her name. “I know what you mean,” he mutters. 

“Have you— ” 

“No, God. I don’t want to talk about that.” 

They sit in silence until Jackson’s pulled himself together. “I promise to stop fucking with Derek,” he says. 

“I’ll believe it when I see it, dude.” 

“I _promise_.” Jackson looks at him kind of sideways. “Have him sit with us at lunch Monday,” he suggests. “I’ll apologize, I swear.” 

Stiles chews his lip. He doesn’t want to choose Derek over his friends, but he wouldn’t blame Derek if he never wanted to see Jackson again. “I’ll run it by him.” 

Jackson gives Stiles a hug and Stiles awkwardly hugs him back. Jackson smells clean and sort of sharp, and for a second Stiles lets himself imagine that things _were_ a little different. That he loved Jackson, and not Derek. 

He thinks he would have been happy. But that would only be because he didn’t know what he was missing. 

# 

“No,” Derek says again. 

“Der,” Stiles whines. 

“Stiles, it’s a hard no. The hardest. Rock hard.” Derek runs up and down the scale. He’s seated at the piano in his home, Stiles perched on the floor next to him. 

“Enough about your penis,” Stiles says. 

“Har, har.” 

“It’s just lunch. I’ll be right there. You think I’d let anyone mess with you?” 

“I don’t trust it. It feels like I’m walking straight into a trap, and I’m not going to do it.” 

“Jackson wants to apologize to you.” Stiles sits on the piano bench, ignoring Derek’s death glare. 

“Jackson’s never had a problem finding me when he wanted me. I’m not going to him.” Derek starts playing _Clair de Lune_ , hoping Stiles will take the hint and end the conversation. 

“Scott really misses you,” Stiles tries. 

Derek sighs. Scott texted him yesterday, apologizing for everything that happened over the past few years. He’s such a little puppy-dog, so sweet and guileless and innocent that Derek couldn’t help but forgive him. Ever since Scott’s been cheerfully texting him dumb jokes and memories and ideas for what they should do the next time they hang out. It’s kind of adorable. “We could hang out other times than at lunch.” 

“I just don’t want you to be lonely,” Stiles says earnestly. 

“I’m not lonely.” Derek lets the notes soften, until they’re all romantic and sweet. “I have you.” 

Stiles puts his head on Derek’s shoulder. “Why are you so nice to me?” he asks softly. 

Derek lets his concentration slip for just a second, so he can smack a kiss on Stiles’s lips. “Because you’re not a dick like your friends.” 

Stiles wriggles on the bench and lets Derek finish the song. 

# 

Stiles doesn’t bring it up again, but later, when they’re under one of Aunt Mabel’s knitted afghans watching _Casablanca_ on her shitty old TV, Derek starts thinking about it. He’s used to spending his lunch periods in the practice room, wolfing down an energy bar just as the bell rings. The cafeteria has always seemed like a gladiator’s ring to him, filled with people just waiting to give him a thumbs-down. But Stiles _would_ be there, and Derek knows that Stiles wouldn’t let anything happen to him. 

He does like Kira. And it would be nice to hang out with Scott during the school day. He wishes Erica Reyes was still around; he always sort of liked her, and he thinks she would have been a good ally. But Scott’s girlfriend seems fine, and Stiles is always raving about how great Lydia is. 

Maybe he could have friends. Maybe he deserves it. 

“Okay,” he says. 

Stiles looks over at him. “Hm?” 

“Lunch on Monday. I’ll sit with your friends.” 

A grin blossoms on Stiles’s face. “You’re sure? Really sure?” 

Derek nods. 

“Yes! Derek, that’s awesome.” Stiles practically climbs on top of him, all knees and elbows. “If Jackson says one shitty thing, just _one_ , you have my permission and encouragement to cold-cock him in front of everyone.” 

Derek tugs him down. “And then we’ll ride off into the sunset together while the cafeteria applauds us in slow motion,” he says letting the sarcasm roll out nice and thick. 

Stiles kisses him, sneaking his tongue into Derek’s mouth to shut him up. When he finishes he hums in satisfaction and lays down on Derek’s chest, head over Derek’s heartbeat. “Don’t tell Scott,” he whispers, “but you’re my favorite person.” 

# 

On Monday Derek knows that people are talking about him. He spends all of first period in the practice rooms with Stiles and has to force himself to go to second period. Every single person from freshman to senior knows what happened at the party and he keeps tensing himself throughout the day, expecting to get hit. 

But it never comes. 

Instead people are being nice to him— going out of their way to offer him a pen or a pat on the back or just a cheerful smile. He feels like a baby bird cracking his head out of his shell. It feels so good that when people talk to him he starts talking back, cracking jokes just to watch them laugh. “You’re all right, Hale,” more than one person says to him, words better than any apology. 

He’s making friends. 

Derek Hale is making friends. 

He floats on air all the way to lunch. 

# 

Stiles honestly can’t believe how well things are going. Derek’s been at the lunch table for ten minutes and everyone is just talking and laughing as if he’s been there for years. Jackson is a little tense, and he hasn’t offered that apology yet, but so far everything is even better than Stiles could have imagined. 

Derek is currently having a spirited conversation with Lydia about some business economics project they’re about to start. “Stiles can probably help you with that,” Lydia says. “He’s amazing at creating posters for stuff. Good with his hands, you know?” 

“I know,” Derek says, and blushes all the way to his roots. 

“That’s disgusting,” Jackson says coldly, but everyone ignores him. 

“It was Erica who was always so good at posters,” Allison says, and Stiles looks up in surprise. That’s the first time someone other than him has said Erica’s name this entire school year. 

“Oh— that reminds me.” Derek looks around at everyone. “I’m so sorry that you all lost your friend. Stiles told me how hard it was when everything happened. I can’t even imagine.” 

Stiles clenches his fork in his hand. Fuck, he should have told Derek this was an off-limits topic of conversation. 

“Wait, you know what happened?” Kira asks Derek, frowning. 

“Of course. Everyone does.” 

“Well, I don’t.” Kira stares at Stiles. Stiles has told her more than once that it’s a big secret, something nobody is privileged to know, and now that she knows he was lying he can’t look at her. He drops his gaze down to his food, pokes at his sandwich. 

“You don’t?” Jackson is staring at Stiles, but Stiles purposefully doesn’t look his way. “You should. It’s kind of hard for us to talk about, Derek…would you mind?” 

“Jackson,” Allison says softly, but it goes unheard. 

“It was fucked up,” Derek says passionately. Stiles winces; it figures that Derek is finally feeling loose enough around his friends to actually talk, and it’s about _this_. “Some absolute piece of shit videotaped her one night when she was having a seizure. I guess she had epilepsy or something, but nobody knew— did you guys know?” 

Everyone shakes their heads, eyes cast down. 

“You could hear them laughing in the background. They hacked into her Facebook and put it up there. Apparently she was sick for years, and she’d always been afraid of people finding out, so when the video went up and people at school starting making fun of her…” 

“Oh, God,” Kira says, seeing where this is going. 

“She brought a gun to school,” Derek says. “She didn’t shoot at students or anything, but they found it on her. She said she was going to kill herself on the quad.” 

Stiles can’t breathe. He remembers the sirens, the way they had led her out in handcuffs. The wild look in her eyes. 

“She’s in Eichen House now,” Derek finishes. “It’s a mental hospital. She’s in pretty bad shape. And frankly, the cops should be looking for whoever took that video. Scumbags.” 

Stiles can feel the moment when Jackson makes a decision. “You don’t know who took that video, Derek?” 

“What?” Derek frowns at him. “Of course not.” 

Jackson smirks. “Do you want to?” 

“Jackson, stop it,” Lydia says. 

“Look, we don’t really like talking about this,” Stiles adds. 

“You guys were the ones who wanted to let Hale into the inner circle,” Jackson almost spits. “Don’t you think that makes him privy to our dirty little secrets?” 

Stiles stands. “Derek, we’re leaving.” 

Derek stares up at him. Stiles can tell he’s confused, on the edge of suspicious. They’ve talked about Erica a lot in the past few weeks, and Stiles has never once mentioned knowing who took the video that caused her breakdown. “I don’t think we are,” Derek says. He looks at Jackson, his tormentor for so many years now his ally. “Who took it, Jackson?” 

Jackson’s lips curl up. He raises one finger and points at Stiles. 

Stiles collapses back down onto his seat. 

“You fucking asshole,” Scott says, shoving his tray. “Jackson, what the fuck is wrong with you?” 

“You?” Derek whispers. “Stiles— you _did_ that?” 

Stiles stares blankly at Derek, totally lost. He wants to explain— that they’d all been so, so high, and they’d thought Erica had just been having a bad trip, putting on a stupid show for them, so when Jackson had told Stiles to pull out his phone, he had done it. He’d put the video on Erica’s Facebook at Jackson’s urging, because the thought of Erica getting busted by her parents had seemed so hilarious. It wasn’t until Lydia had walked into the room and seen her, and known what was happening, that they realized she wasn’t tripping, but by then it was too late. 

They hadn’t known. If Stiles had known how Erica would react, how the kids at school would pounce on the Queen Bitch’s newly discovered weakness and torture her for it— of course he wouldn’t have done it. He’s been wanting to take it all back since it happened. But all he says is, lamely, “It isn’t how you think.” 

Derek’s lip curls in disgust. “I take back what I said,” he says in a voice so low only Stiles can hear. “You are a dick, just like your friends.” He grabs his tray and storms away. 

“Derek!” Stiles jumps up and tries to follow him. “Go fuck yourself, Jackson,” he snarls as he leaves. 

Derek is too fast for him and by the time Stiles gets outside he’s already gone. “Derek!” he calls uselessly. 

“Stiles, don’t be an idiot.” 

Stiles spins around to see Jackson, looking at him almost pityingly. 

“Don’t ever talk to me again,” Stiles snaps. He wants to _hurt_ Jackson. He want to make Jackson pay so intensely it scares him. 

“He isn’t right for you,” Jackson says, walking closer and reaching for Stiles’s hand. “But I am. You know why? Because I know what you’re ashamed of, and _I_ love you anyway.” 

Stiles shudders. “Stop saying you love me.” 

“Stop acting like you don’t love me.” 

Stiles rips his hand away and glares at Jackson. “Is this your new strategy, fuckwad? Rewriting history? I’ve never loved you. I never will. As far as I’m concerned, we’re not even friends anymore. Back the fuck off.” 

Jackson shakes his head. “Be pissed if you want to, but all I did was tell Derek the truth. If he can’t handle it…that’s not on me.” 

Stiles walks away, because he can’t bear to recognize the truth in that. Jackson is right. Stiles is the one who has been trying to rewrite history, by pretending that one of his best friends isn’t in a mental ward because of what _he_ did. 

He doesn’t deserve to be forgiven. 

He spends the rest of the lunch hour in the library, trying to craft a text to Derek. In the end, he goes simple: _I’m sorry._

He doesn’t get a response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear, I had the Erica thing planned before the movie Unfriended came out..

**Author's Note:**

> The Teen Wolf::Dog Sees God::Peanuts breakdown, if you’re not familiar:
> 
> Stiles::CB::Charlie Brown 
> 
> Derek::Beethoven::Schroeder 
> 
> Jackson::Matt::Pigpen 
> 
> Scott::Van::Linus 
> 
> Lydia::Tricia::Peppermint Patty 
> 
> Allison::Marcy::Marcie 
> 
> Erica::Van’s Sister::Lucy And Kira’s going to show up and be::CB’s Sister::Sally


End file.
